Yajie Wang received the Best Paper Award at the 2026 North America Annual Conference of the Chinese Economists Society, held at Emory University on March 28–29, 2026. The award recognizes an outstanding paper presented by a junior scholar within five years of receiving their Ph.D.

The award-winning paper, “Financing from Workers: Can Labor Market Power Mitigate Financial Frictions?”, coauthored with Yan Bai, combines empirical and theoretical analyses to show that labor market power can provide firms with an additional source of internal financing. This channel helps firms better cope with financial constraints and highlights the importance of labor market structure for firm resilience and real economic outcomes.