Lizi Yu

Dr. Lizi Yu is a Lecturer in the School of Economics at the University of Queensland, part of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research specializes in applied economics, with a focus on labor and personnel economics. As a Research Affiliate at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, Yu investigates topics such as employee turnover costs, performance incentives in sales teams, peer effects in labor markets, and the persistence of work-from-home arrangements following COVID-19 lockdowns. She actively supervises PhD students on diverse subjects including the impact of air pollution on gender gaps in the labor market, digital finance's role in reducing gender disparities in financial inclusion in South Asia, the effects of increased education attainment on fertility in Australia, and the interplay between biodiversity conservation and green innovation.

Yu's key publications include 'Kinks as Goals: Accelerating Commissions and the Performance of Sales Teams' co-authored with Peter Kuhn, published in Management Science (2024, volume 71, issue 6, pages 4622-4642), which analyzes how commission structures influence sales team performance. Another significant contribution is 'How Costly Is Turnover? Evidence from Retail,' also with Peter Kuhn, appearing in the Journal of Labor Economics (2021, volume 39, issue 2, pages 461-496), offering empirical evidence on turnover expenses in retail settings. Her recent working paper, 'A New Equilibrium: COVID-19 Lockdowns and WFH Persistence,' co-authored with Laura Ketter and Todd Morris (2025), examines shifts in remote work practices. Additional working papers cover 'Identification of Peer Effects with Miss-specified Peer Groups' with Christiern Rose (2021), 'Crisis at 35: Middle Ageism in the Labor Market' with Shuo Zhang, Simin Yuan, Taoxiong Liu, and Kebin Dai, and 'Female Bosses and Female Employees' Careers: Evidence from Lawyers.' In 2023, she received funding from the Queensland Treasury Corporation for 'Modelling Public Wages Expenses Across States and Time Using Survey Data.' Professional Email: lizi.yu@uq.edu.au