Nancy Qian is an empirical micro-economist interested in a wide range of topics pertinent to developing economies. She has done substantial work on the economic determinants household decisions such as sex selection and education investment. She has done a significant amount of work in China. Her current work covers topics such as the returns to infrastructural and public goods investment, determinants individual savings behavior and the long run economic consequences of health. To address these issues, she exploits variation caused by policy changes or randomized experiments.