Daniel Han

Bio

I am an Economics Ph.D. student at Boston University. My research interests are in Development Economics, Behavioral Economics, Labor Economics and the Economics of Education. I was formerly a Senior Research Specialist at the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics, Nairobi, Kenya, where I managed Professor Johannes Haushofer (Cornell University)’s academic projects in the fields of Behavioral and Development Economics. I have also worked with researchers such as Edward Miguel (UC Berkeley), Dennis Egger (Oxford) and Toman Barsbai (Bristol).

I was previously a Research Associate at INSEAD, assisting Professors Michael Freeman and Chun So Yeon in the Technology and Operations Management field of research. Furthermore, at Singapore Management University, I worked with faculty on projects in Development Economics and Economic Forecasting.

I obtained my Master of Science degree in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor of Science degree (Summa Cum Laude) in Economics from Singapore Management University.

Curriculum Vitae (Updated July 2025)

Contact

Email: danielsh@bu.edu
Address:
270 Bay State Road
Boston University Department of Economics
Boston, MA 02215, United States

Publications

Brain Drain or Brain Gain? Effects of High-Skilled International Emigration on Origin Countries

(with Catia Batista, Johannes Haushofer, Gaurav Khanna, David McKenzie, Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, Caroline Theoharides and Dean Yang)

Science 388 (6749), eadr8861 (2025)

Abstract (click to expand): How does emigration of highly educated citizens of low-income countries to high-income countries affect the economies of the origin countries? The direct effect is “brain drain”—a decrease in the country’s human capital stock. However, there may also be indirect “brain gain” effects. This review summarizes evidence that uses causal inference methods to reveal mechanisms that may lead to brain drain, gain, or circulation. Collectively, the weight of the evidence suggests that migration opportunities often increase human capital stock in origin countries and produce downstream beneficial effects through remittances; foreign direct investment and trade linkages; transfers of knowledge, technology and norms; and return migration. We discuss conditions under which benefits from skilled migration may outweigh costs and also describe potential research paths to inform policy.

VoxDevTalk

Forecasting GDP with Many Predictors in a Small Open Economy: Forecast or Information Pooling?

(with Chow Hwee Kwan and Yijie Fei)

Empirical Economics 65(2), 805-829 (2023)

Abstract (click to expand): This study compares two distinct approaches, pooling forecasts from single indicator MIDAS models versus pooling information from indicators into factor MIDAS models, for short-term Singapore GDP growth forecasting with a large ragged-edge mixed frequency dataset. We consider various popular weighting schemes in the literature when conducting forecast pooling. As for factor extraction, both the conventional dynamic factor model and the three-pass regression filter approach are considered. We investigate the relative predictive performance of all methods in a pseudo-out-of-sample forecasting exercise from 2007Q4 to 2020Q3. In the stable growth non-crisis period, no substantial difference in predictive performance is found across forecast models. In comparison, we find information pooling tends to dominate both the quarterly autoregressive benchmark model and the forecast pooling strategy particularly during the Global Financial Crisis.

Personal

Website: I am grateful to Gautam Rao sharing the template for his website, which has been adapted for this website. Please check out his GitHub repository for the template.