Welcome! I am a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Georgia State University and a 2025–2026 job market candidate. I am an experimental and behavioral economist working at the intersection of environmental economics, information economics, and public policy. My research studies how individuals respond to incentives and information in strategic environments, with a particular focus on managing shared resources and congestion.

I am fortunate to be advised by Professor Garth Huetel​, Vjollca Sadiraj, Sarah Jacobson, James Cox.

My Job Market Paper, “Persuade or Price? Bayesian Persuasion vs. Pigouvian Taxation Under Congestion,” experimentally compares financial incentives and strategic information provision as policy tools. Using laboratory experiments, I show that simple pricing mechanisms improve welfare and coordination, while partial information disclosure can unintentionally increase congestion by encouraging strategic gambling behavior.

More broadly, my research combines economic theory, laboratory experiments, and quasi-experimental analysis using large administrative and survey datasets to study cooperation, beliefs, and policy design under uncertainty. In ongoing empirical work, I use policy variation and instrumental-variable approaches to examine behavioral responses to public health and environmental policies.

I am currently a CEAR (Center for Economics and Risk) Scholar at Georgia State University and have received multiple fellowships and research grants supporting my experimental research and conference presentations.

View my CV | Contact me at: wlu10@gsu.edu and wenlu0222@gmail.com