I am Zhan Zhu, a second-year Master’s student at School of Economics, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE). I received my Bachelor of Economics (Mathematical Economics) degree in June 2024, also from SUFE.

My research interests include Behavioral and Experimental Economics and Matching Theory.

zhuzhan0103@outlook.com · CV

Publications

• Ekici’s reclaim-proof allocations revisited, Qianfeng Tang and Zhan Zhu
  • Journal of Mathematical Economics, 121, 103170 (2025)
  • Abstract: We revisit the concept of reclaim-proof allocations proposed by Ekici (2013) for house allocation problems with existing tenants. As a concept of core, the definition of reclaim-proof allocations assumes that when a coalition blocks an allocation, an agent in the coalition is allowed to bring her allocated object into the coalition, even when it is privately owned by an outsider. We propose a new notion of core called the effectual core by restoring the feasibility of coalitional blocking in Ekici’s definition. Our main result shows that the effectual core, while by definition weaker than reclaim-proofness, is actually equivalent to it. Together with Ekici’s results, it is then immediate that an allocation is in the effectual core if and only if it is produced by the You request my house-I get your turn (YRMH-IGYT) mechanism (Abdulkadiroğlu and Sönmez, 1999) if and only if it is a competitive allocation

Working Papers

• Decomposing the Power of Certainty: State Representation versus Pure Uncertainty, Simin He, Bin Miao, Qianfeng Tang and Zhan Zhu (2025)
  • Abstract: We experimentally decompose the “Power of Certainty” effect (Martínez-Marquina, Niederle and Vespa, 2019) into two components: the effect of state representation and the effect of pure uncertainty. In our experiment, subjects face decision problems in three settings: one with uncertainty over states (Savage framework), one with pure risk (explicit probabilities without state representation), and one with certainty over outcomes. Each main problem is followed by the corresponding binary choice problems with equivalent payoff structure. *In binary choices, we replicate the Power of Certainty: performance improves significantly under certainty. Interestingly, the source of this improvement differs by problem type. For problems involving no stochastic dominance, improvements arise from eliminating uncertainty (pure risk vs. certainty). For problems involving stochastic dominance, improvements arise from removing state representation (state-based vs. pure risk). In the main decision problems, however, we find no significant differences across three settings. These results suggest that Power of Certainty manifests in simple binary choice problems, it does not always translate to richer decision environments with the same underlying payoff structure.