Dr Meng Le Zhang

Department of Economics

Research Associate

meng_le.zhang@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 8398

9 Mappin Street

Full contact details

Dr Meng Le Zhang
Department of Economics
9 Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 4DT

Profile: Meng Le Zhang is a research fellow at the Department of Economics. He is a quantitative social researcher with a background in urban studies and applied econometrics, focusing on policy impact evaluations. Currently, he is involved in several research projects, including:

(i) A project studying migrant segregation and integration policies, which can be found at the following link: Life on the Frontier: The Impact of Social Frontiers on Social Mobility and Integration of Migrants.

(ii) An investigation into the rollout of heat pumps and solar panels in the United Kingdom.

(iii) An evaluability assessment of two flagship early years programs, Flying Start and Sure Start, in Wales and Northern Ireland.

Meng Le completed his PhD studies in 2016 at Cardiff University. The title of his thesis was 'Graduate Destinations and Labour Market Stratification Across Different Fields of Study'. His academic background includes statistics, data science, and social science research methods.

Research interests: Meng Le is broadly interested in causal inference and exploring research designs, particularly naturally occurring experiments, that can generate robust evidence on topics of interest to academics and policy-makers. As a result, he has worked on a diverse range of research topics. For example, he has:

- examined the effects of public crime statistics on house prices by using errors in public data
- investigated the impact of housing policy on refugee homelessness by analysing response rates in a postal survey
- measured the impact of cash incentives in Norway's flagship migrant integration policy by examining age-based discontinuities

Currently, Meng Le is specifically interested in the evidence base behind social interventions aimed at helping the UK reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

Publications

Journal articles

Zhang M, Adepeju M & Thomas R (2022) Estimating the effects of crime maps on house prices using an (un)natural experiment: a study protocol. PLoS ONE, 17(12).
Zhang ML, Galster G, Manley D & Pryce G (2022) The effects of social housing regeneration schemes on employment: the case of the Glasgow stock transfer. Urban Studies, 59(13), 2756-2773.
Zhang ML (2021) The Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS) as a resource for investigating neighbourhood peer effects: A case study using natural experiment(s) in fertility and labour market participation.
Zhang ML, Andersen HL & Osland L (2021) Estimating the impact of the Norwegian Introduction Programme on integration using a Regression Kink Design (RKD): Pre-registration.
Zhang ML, Boyd A, Cheung SY, Sharland E & Scourfield J (2020) Social work contact in a UK cohort study: Under-reporting, predictors of contact and the emotional and behavioural problems of children. Children and Youth Services Review, 115, 105071-105071.
Zhang ML, Cheung SY & Phillimore J (2020) Did increasing new refugees’ access to social housing reduce homelessness? Evidence from a quasi-experiment.
Zhang M & Pryce G (2019) The dynamics of poverty, employment and access to amenities in polycentric cities : measuring the decentralisation of poverty and its impacts in England and Wales. Urban Studies, 57(10), 2015-2030.
Scourfield J, Rees A, Shardlow S & Zhang M (2018) A Profile of UK Doctoral Candidates in Social Work and Social Care. British Journal of Social Work.
Zhang M, Cheung SY, Scourfield J & Sharland E (2018) Comparing Fathers and Mothers Who Have Social Work Contact. Social Work Research.
Scourfield J, Maxwell N, Zhang ML, de Villiers T, Pithouse A, Kinnersley P, Metcalf E & Tayyaba S (2017) Evaluation of a Fast-Track Postgraduate Social Work Program in England Using Simulated Practice. Research on Social Work Practice, 104973151773557-104973151773557.
Sharland E, Holland P, Henderson M, Zhang ML, Cheung SY & Scourfield J (2017) Assembling life history narratives from quantitative longitudinal panel data: What’s the story for families using social work?. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 20(6), 667-679.
Maxwell N, Scourfield J, de Villiers T, Pithouse A & Le Zhang M (2017) The Pre-Training Characteristics of Frontline Participants and Mainstream Social Work Students. The British Journal of Social Work.
Zhang ML, Henderson M, Cheung SY, Scourfield J & Sharland E (2016) Predicting the recipients of social work support, and its impact on emotional and behavioural problems in early childhood. Child & Family Social Work.
Scourfield J, Colombo G, Evans R, Jacob N, Le Zhang M, Burnap P, Edwards A, Housley W & Williams M (2016) The Response in Twitter to an Assisted Suicide in a Television Soap Opera. Crisis, 37, 392-395.

Working papers

Zhang M, Andersen HL & Osland L (2023) Measuring the effect of cash incentives on migrant integration in Norway: Early results from a quasi-experiment. The Sheffield Economic Research Paper Series (SERPS), 2023003.

Preprints

Zhang ML, Adepeju M & Thomas R (2022) Estimating the effect of crime (maps) on house prices using a (un)natural experiment, Center for Open Science.