Yiming Cao is a PhD candidate in Economics at Boston University. He works at the intersection of development economics and political economy. His research centers around topics such as bureaucracy, corruption, and conflict. His recent work examines building damages in the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake and provides evidence of how the patron-client relationship creates social vulnerabilities that magnify the impact of negative shocks. He is also in the progress of identifying information flows among politicians and personal networks using state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) techniques. Prior to Joining Boston University, he received his bachelor's degree at Fudan University.