Bio

Zhentong Lu is a Senior Economist in the Payment System Oversight Division of the Financial Stability Department (FSD). Before joining the Bank, he was an Assistant Professor in the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. His main research areas are empirical industrial organization, applied econometrics and payment economics.

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Staff working papers

Measuring the Effectiveness of Salespeople: Evidence from a Cold-Drink Market

Staff Working Paper 2021-40 Haofeng Jin, Zhentong Lu
Salespeople are widely employed in many industries. We leverage a unique data set on retail sales from a leading Chinese cold-drink manufacturer and information on the firm’s salespeople assignment rule to measure the causal effect of salespeople on product revenue.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Labour markets, Service sector JEL Code(s): L, L8, L81, M, M3, M5

The Effects of Government Licensing on E-commerce: Evidence from Alibaba

Staff Working Paper 2021-32 Ginger Zhe Jin, Zhentong Lu, Xiaolu Zhou, Chunxiao Li
How does government licensing affect selling on online platforms? We examine the impact of China’s 2015 Food Safety Law on sellers and buyers on Alibaba, the largest e-commerce platform in that country.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Market structure and pricing, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): D, D8, D82, K, K2, K23, L, L5, L8, L81

Examining the Impact of Home Purchase Restrictions on China’s Housing Market

Staff Working Paper 2021-18 Zhentong Lu, Sisi Zhang, Jian Hong
How do “cooling measures” in the housing market—policies aimed to stabilize prices—affect the market? We use a structural model of housing demand and price competition among developers to evaluate China’s home purchase restriction policies implemented in 2010–11.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Housing, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): O, O1, O18, R, R3, R31, R38

Predicting Payment Migration in Canada

Staff Working Paper 2020-37 Anneke Kosse, Zhentong Lu, Gabriel Xerri
Developments are underway to replace Canada’s two core payment systems with three new systems. We use a discrete choice model to predict migration patterns of end-users and financial institutions for future systems and discuss their policy implications.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C3, E, E4, E42, G, G1, G2, G28

An Economic Perspective on Payments Migration

Staff Working Paper 2020-24 Anneke Kosse, Zhentong Lu, Gabriel Xerri
Consumers, businesses and banks make millions of payments each day using a variety of instruments, such as debit cards, cheques and wires. Canada is currently developing three new systems to process these transactions: Lynx, Settlement Optimization Engine (SOE) and Real-Time Rail (RTR).
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial services, Financial system regulation and policies, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, G, G2, G21

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Journal publications