Professor Chen Xiaoguang and his team from RIEM has consecutively published two studies in prestigious international journals. One of them was featured in the top-tier Journal of Development Economics (JDE), revealing for the first time that the expansion of high-speed rail networks achieves agricultural "reduction in quantity and increase in efficiency" by enhancing total factor productivity. The other study was published in the authoritative Regional Science and Urban Economics, a journal in urban and regional economics, quantitatively assessing the improvement in air quality along the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line due to its opening, yielding annual health benefits exceeding 20 billion yuan. These two achievements integrate three major research fields: urban economics, agricultural economics, and environmental economics, contributing a Chinese approach to the coordinated advancement of a strong transportation nation and green development.

On September 24th, the paper titled "High-speed railroads and local agricultural development" was officially accepted by JDE

On July 2nd, the paper titled "High-speed rail opening and urban air quality" was published in Regional Science and Urban Economics

Chen Xiaoguang is currently a professor at the Institute of Economics and Management, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, a specially-appointed professor selected for national talent projects, an expert receiving special government allowance from the State Council (2024), and a recipient of the National Natural Science Foundation of China's Excellent Youth Science Foundation (2018). He obtained his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from Peking University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, respectively. He primarily engages in interdisciplinary research in environmental economics and management, agricultural economics, and operations management. He has published dozens of papers in top journals in the fields of natural sciences, economics, and management, including Economic Research, Nature, PNAS Nexus, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, and Transportation Science. He has led key projects of the National Social Science Fund, the Excellent Youth Science Foundation of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, key international cooperation projects, and general projects. He was selected as one of Elsevier's 2020 Highly Cited Researchers (Theoretical Economics) in China.