On 20 May 2021, the 9th Xixian Forum of Income Distribution and Public Finance co-organized by the School of Public Finance and Taxation of ZUEL and the Innovation Base for Income Distribution and Public Finance, was successfully held in Conference Room 603 of Wenqin Building. As the keynote speaker of the forum, Professor Liang Pinghan from Sun Yat-sen University delivered a keynote speech entitled "Writing and Submission Strategies for Academic Papers". The forum was chaired by Professor Lu Yuanping, Executive Vice Director of IIDPF. Professor Zhang Kezhong, Dean of the School of Public Finance and Taxation and Vice Director of the IIDPF, Professor Wu Lei, Associate Professor Tian Binbin, Associate Professor Zeng Jingjing and Associate Professor Yang Guochao and more than 40 students and faculty attended the forum.
Professor Liang Pinghan is an experienced writer and publisher of more than thirty papers in authoritative core journals at home and abroad, including Games and Economic Behavior, Journal of Comparative Economics, Economic Research Journal, and Management World. In this forum, Professor Liang Pinghan began with an in-depth analysis of the thinking path of empirical essay writing based on his years of accumulated experience. He explained each of the three paths: theory, literature and data, analysing in detail the ideas, frameworks and shortcomings of each path, and pointed out that no matter which path is used, the ultimate goal is to "bring all the methods back to the source". Professor Liang stressed that as a paper writer, one should always keep a curious mind and be sensitive, pay attention to the mechanism behind the phenomenon, follow the central documents and important scholars' speeches, combine one's research with national strategies, and have readers and reviewers in mind. He proposed that a well-written empirical paper should be "unexpected but reasonable".
Afterwards, Professor Liang Pinghan presented his papers Tax Enforcement Activities, Fiscal Pressure and Firms' Financial Constraints and Paperless Reform of Tax Rebates, Administrative Burden and Firm Exports as examples of his writing and publication process. Professor Liang also shared with the audience the thinking paths, layout arrangements, and strategies for coping with the revision process in Chinese journals for the two papers' analysis studies.
At the end of the keynote, Professor Liang Pinghan summarised his experience in writing and publishing. He pointed out the importance of having a "writer's mind" when choosing a topic for a paper, paying attention to the life and finding stories through it. “The unexamined life is not worth living" by Socrates tells us that we should always look at life, find problems in it and sublimate the meaning. Professor Leung concluded by emphasising the importance of selecting current journals for submission that are appropriate to the subject matter of one's writing. After the lecture, Professor Liang Pinghan gave detailed answers to all the questions raised and wished everyone good luck in publishing their papers.