Li Han is associate professor of economics in the Division of Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She received her Ph.D. in Economics at Harvard University in 2008. Her primary fields are development economics and political economy. Her research interests include political economy in authoritarian regimes and public policy issues in developing economies. Her studies on political economy mainly focus on political selection and incentives of politicians in the Chinese context. For example, she has studied the recruitment of communist party members, the electoral outcome of village elections and its impacts on village economy, and the incentives of local officials behind their policy choices. Her research on public policy issues centers on education and social segregation. She explores issues such as peer effects in education, the impacts of reforms in education finance system, and the effect of status transmission on marriage segregation in China.