Wendong Zhang

Biography

Wendong Zhang is an associate professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, part of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. His research and extension program seeks to better understand US farmland market, Chinese agriculture, as well as the interplay between agriculture and the environment.

Zhang is currently an associate editor of the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation and was an associate editor of American Journal of Agricultural Economics from 2020 to 2023. He is also faculty affiliate at Cornell Center for China Economic Research, faculty fellow at Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, and a 2023-2025 fellow with the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research.

Prior to joining Cornell, Zhang was a tenured associate professor in the Department of Economics and the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University. He obtained his PhD in agricultural, environmental and development economics from Ohio State University in 2015.

Education

PhD Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, Ohio State University, Columbus, 2015
MA Economics, Ohio State University, Columbus, 2012
BS Environmental Science, Fudan University, 2009

Research

• Qu, Xiaorui; Lu, Qinan; Li, Minghao; Zhang, Wendong. "Broadband internet speed upgrades and the farmland market: A shift-share instrumental variable approach"American Journal of Agricultural Economics. 108.2 (2026): 566-598
• Cheng, Nieyan; Li, Minghao; Liu, Pengfei; Luo, Qianfeng; Tang, Chuan; Zhang, Wendong. "Pipeline incidents and property values"Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. 127 (2024): e103041
• Li, Minghao; He, Xi; Zhang, Wendong; Qu, Shuyang; Rodriguez, Lulu; Gbeda, James. "Farmers' reactions to the US–China trade war: Perceptions versus behaviors"Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. 2.3 (2023): 386-401
• Howard, Gregory; Zhang, Wendong; Valcu-Lisman, Adriana; Gassman, Philip. "Evaluating the tradeoff between cost effectiveness and participation in agricultural conservation programs"American Journal of Agricultural Economics. 106.2 (2024): 712-738
• Liu, Qing; Maule, Beatrice; Zhang, Wendong. "Of women and land: How gender affects successions and transfers of Iowa farms"Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy. 45.4 (2023): 2255-2280
• He, Xi; Balistreri, Edward; Kim, Gyu Hyun; Zhang, Wendong. "A general equilibrium assessment of COVID-19's labor productivity impacts on China's regional economies"Journal of Productivity Analysis. 58 (2022): 129-150
• Mei, Yingdan; Gao, Li; Zhang, Wendong; Yang, Feng-An. "Do homeowners benefit when coal-fired power plants switch to natural gas? Evidence from Beijing, China"Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. 110 (2021): 102566
• Xiong, Tao; Zhang, Wendong; Chen, Chen-Ti. "A Fortune From Misfortune: Evidence from Hog Firms' Stock Price Responses to China's African Swine Fever Outbreaks"Food Policy. 105 (2021): 102150
• Shao, Yongtong; Xiong, Tao; Li, Minghao; Hayes, Dermot; Zhang, Wendong; Xie, Wei. "China's Missing Pigs: Correcting China's Hog Inventory Data Using a Machine Learning Approach"American Journal of Agricultural Economics. 103.3 (2021): 1082-1098
• Zhang, Wendong; Sohngen, Brent. "Do US Anglers Care About Harmful Algal Blooms? A Discrete Choice Experiment of Lake Erie Recreational Anglers"American Journal of Agricultural Economics. 100.3 (2018): 868-888

Awards

• Young Professional Achievement Award (2022) College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Alumni Society, the Ohio State University
• Distinguished Extension/Outreach Program Award, Individual: Less than Ten Years' Experience (2021) Agricultural & Applied Economics Association
• Advisor of Winner of the AAEA Best Undergraduate Student Paper Competition (2021) Agricultural & Applied Economics Association
• Early Achievement Award in Extension and Outreach (2021) Iowa State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
• Bruce Gardner Memorial Prize for Applied Policy Analysis Award (2019) Agricultural & Applied Economics Association