His parents were among the 97,000 Shanghai zhiqing (知青), or zhishi qingnian (知识青年), “the educated youths,” mobilized by the Chinese state to migrate to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (新疆生产建设兵团) from 1963 to 1966.
He was admitted to the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University as the 14th highest scored student[1] of Xinjiang in 1989.
Hu has contributed to the literature in micro-econometrics, empirical industrial organization, labor economics, and macroeconomics.
Specifically, if the latent variable is discrete, the identification involves eigenvalue-eigenvector decomposition of a matrix constructed by the data; if the latent variable is continuous, it involves eigenfunction decomposition of a linear operator again constructed by the data.
[7][8] Moreover, he contributed to the literature of dynamic discrete choice models by allowing the presence of time-varying unobserved state variable,[9] or that the agent has subjective beliefs.
More recently, Hu published a paper uncovering a more reliable estimate of China's unemployment rate.
He applied his econometric methods of latent variables to studying the GDP growth using a novel approach that relates nighttime lights with economic activities.
[25] Hu was one of amici curiae in support of Students For Fair Admissions (SFFA) in the SFFA v. Harvard case, in which SFFA alleged that Harvard's undergraduate admission practices discriminated against Asian Americans, in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and in the Supreme Court of the United States during 2018-2023.