I am an incoming Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University's Center on Contemporary China, housed in the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS). I received my Ph.D. jointly in Political Science and Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in August 2026, and was previously a Predoctoral Visiting Scholar in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University.

I am a comparativist and political economist studying authoritarian regimes, with a focus on China. My research examines how authoritarianism deepens — where institutional constraints on incumbents are gradually stripped away — what its consequences are, and how individuals and firms navigate this situation. Methodologically, I combine theoretical models with empirical methods of causal inference.

Prior to Wisconsin, I received my MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics as a Lee Family Scholar and my Bachelor of Economics and Finance from the University of Hong Kong as an HKU Foundation Scholar. 

My name is pronounced /Ming-Tsong Pan/, and you can reach me via email: mingcong.pan@wisc.edu.