Prof. John Zhuang Liu
Associate Professor
LLB, MPhil, PhD, Peking University
LLM, JSD, The University of Chicago
Biography
Zhuang (John) Liu’s research interests include courts and judicial behavior, the economic analysis of law, and law and artificial intelligence. He primarily uses quantitative methods to study these topics. His ongoing research projects include studying how judges and lawyers use artificial intelligence; examining judges’ decisions and behaviors using Chinese judicial data and lab and field experiments; and studying law and development with a combination of court and economic data. His work has been published in esteemed academic journals specializing in law and in China studies, including Journal of Legal Studies, Journal of Legal Analysis, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, American Journal of Comparative Law, Journal of Comparative Economics, China Quarterly, and Journal of Contemporary China. In addition to his English publications, he also contributes to law journals in China. He is the author of “Can Machine Replace Judges? Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Law” (Peking University Press, 2024), the first Chinese book to introduce the application of AI and data science in legal practices and research.
Prof. Liu holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Ph.D. in Law from Peking University, as well as an LLM and a JSD from the University of Chicago. Prior to joining The University of Hong Kong, he was affiliated with the School of Management and Economics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. He founded the legal big data group at the Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data, which conducts research utilizing extensive judicial decision data from China.
He has served as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago Law School, teaching Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, and Law, and at the University of Virginia School of Law, teaching Introduction to Chinese Law.
Research and Teaching
Working Papers
A Few Bad Apples? Academic Dishonesty, Political Selection, and Institutional Performance in China. American Economic Review, Revise and Resubmit (with Wenwei Peng & Shaoda Wang). [Media coverage: The Economist; VoxDev; Becker Friedman Institute for Economics]
The Law and Economics of Lawyers: Evidence from the Revolving Door in China’s Judicial System. NBER working paper (with Wenwei Peng, Shaoda Wang & Daniel Xu).
Data Privacy and Algorithmic Inequality. NBER working paper (with Micheal Sockin & Wei Xiong).
Publications
Books
Ruling with AI: Toward an AI-Native Judiciary. Cambridge University Press (2027 forthcoming).
Can Machine Replace Judges? Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Law. Peking University Press, 2024 [in Chinese] (with Shenghua Lu).
Edited Book
Law and Social Sciences: Data Science in Law. Peking University Press, 2025 [in Chinese] (edited with Meng Hou).
Scholarly Articles in English
AI Penalty in Judicial Reasoning: Indistinguishable from Human, Devalued When Revealed. Journal of Law and Empirical Analysis (2026) (with Huijun Jia).
Live Broadcasting the Courtroom: A Field Experiment in Real Trials. Journal of Legal Studies 55 (1) (2026) (with Yingmao Tang).
Rise of the Chinese Judiciary and Its Limits: Administrative Litigation in the Reform Period. China Quarterly 262 (2025) (with Yuxia Zhang). [Media coverage: Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions]
Constraints in the Economic Analysis of Law in China. Asian Journal of Law and Economics 16 (3) (2025) (with Xiaoping Wu).
How Do Judges Use Large Language Models? Evidence from Shenzhen. Journal of Legal Analysis 16 (1) (2024) (with Xueyao Li). [Media coverage: Shenzhen Special Zone Daily (in Chinese); Sina Finance (in Chinese)]
Courting a Blue Sky? Understanding the Rise of Environmental Litigation in China. Journal of Contemporary China (2024) (with Wenwei Peng and Shaoda Wang).
Authoritarian Transparency: China’s “Missing Cases” in Judicial Opinion Disclosure. Journal of Comparative Economics 50 (1) (2022) (with T.J. Wong, Yi Yang, Tianyu Zhang).
Live Broadcasting and Decision Fairness of Chinese Judges. China Review 22 (3) (2022) (with Yingmao Tang and Kangyun Bao).
The Internet Echo Chamber and the Misinformation of Judges: The Case of Judges’ Perception of Public Support for the Death Penalty in China. International Review of Law and Economics 69 (2021). [Media coverage: CNN]
Judicial Transparency as Judicial Centralization: Mass Publicity of Court Decisions in China. Journal of Contemporary China (2021) (with Lei Chen and Yingmao Tang).
Precedent and Chinese Judges: An Experiment. American Journal of Comparative Law 69 (1) (2021) (with Lars Klöhn and Holger Spamann).
Are There Common/Civil Law Differences and Precedent Effects in Judging Around the World? A Lab Experiment. Journal of Legal Analysis 13 (1) (2021) (with Holger Spamann, Lars Klöhn, Christophe Jamin, Vikramaditya Khanna, Pavan Mamidi, Alexander Morell, Ivan Reidel).
Public Support for the Death Penalty in China: Less from the Populace but More from Elites. China Quarterly 246 (2021). [Media coverage: CNN]
The Jury Trial and Public Trust in the Judiciary: Evidence from Cross-countries Comparison. Asia Pacific Law Review 28(2) (2020) (with Lei Chen).
Legal Techniques for Rationalizing Biased Judicial Decisions. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 16(3) (2019) (with Xueyao Li).
Ownership and Political Control: Evidence from Charter Amendments. International Review of Law and Economics 60 (2019) (with Angela Huyue Zhang).
Mass Publicity of Chinese Court Decisions: Market-Driven or Authoritarian Transparency? China Review 18(2) (2019) (with Yingmao Tang).
Does Reason Writing Reduce Decision Bias? Experimental Evidence from Judges in China. Journal of Legal Studies 47(1) (2018).
Book Chapters & Book Reviews
Book Review on China Netizens’ Opinion on the Death Penalty. China Quarterly (2022).
Computational Legal Studies in China, in Ryan Whalen ed., Computational Legal Studies: The Promise and Challenge of Data-Driven Research, Edward Elgar (2020) (with Yingmao Tang).
Scholarly Articles in Chinese
算法时代的法治之路：计算法学的规范性探索，《交大法学》2025年第1期（与李学尧合著）。
(The Rule of Law in the Algorithmic Age: A Normative Theory in Computational Law. SJTU Law Review [Chinese], 1 [2025].)
幻象与本相：法律人工智能及其他，《中国法律评论》2024年第2期。
(Illusion and Reality: Artificial Intelligence in the Law and Beyond. China Law Review [Chinese], 2 [2024].)
从“世界模型”看人工智能在法律场景的实际应用，《中国应用法学》2024年第2期。
(“World Models” and Artificial Intelligence in the Legal Settings. China Applied Jurisprudence [Chinese], 2 [2024].)
民意如何影响量刑？——以醉酒型危险驾驶罪为切入，《中国法律评论》2023年第1期（与吴雨豪合著）。
(How Does Public Opinion Influence Sentencing? Evidence from Crime of Dangerous Driving under Intoxication. China Law Review [Chinese], 1 [2023].)
矫饰的技术：说理与判决中的偏见，《中国法律评论》2022年第2期（与李学尧合著）。
(The Techniques of Artifice: Bias in Legal Reasoning and Judicial Decisions. China Law Review [Chinese], 2 [2022].)
庭审直播是否影响公正审判，《清华法学》2021年第4期（与唐应茂合著）。《人大复印报刊资料》2022年第3期转载。
(Does Live-Streaming of Court Hearings Affect Fair Trials? Tsinghua Law Journal [Chinese], 4 [2021]. Reprinted by Renmin University of China Reprinted Materials of Newspapers and Periodicals [Chinese], 3 [2022].)
政府放权意愿、混合所有制改革与雇员效率，《世界经济》2021年第5期（与易阳等合著）。
(Government Willingness to Delegate Authority, Mixed-Ownership Reform, and Labor Efficiency. The Journal of World Economy [Chinese], 5 [2021].)
法学中的实验方法，《中国法律评论》2018年第6期。《高等学校文科学术文摘》2019年第2期转载。
(An Introduction to Experimental Methods in Legal Studies. China Law Review [Chinese], 6[2018])
影子银行的第三类风险，《中外法学》2018年第1期。
(Moral Hazard in Shadow Banking. Peking University Law Journal [Chinese], 1 [2018].)
司法信任与经济发展，《法律和社会科学》2015年第1期。
(Judicial Trustworthiness and Economic Development. Law and Social Sciences [Chinese], 1 [2015].)
法学教育与法律决策的内在一致性，《法律和社会科学》2013年第2期。《中国社会科学文摘》2014年第6期转载。
(Legal Education and Internal Consistency in Legal Decision Making. Law and Social Sciences [Chinese], 2 [2013]. Reprinted by Social Sciences in China Digest [Chinese], 6 [2014].)
Teaching (Lectures)
University of Hong Kong
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Law, 2020-now
Rule of Law and Economic Miracle in China, 2020-now
Commercial and Economic Law, 2020-2024
University of Virginia
Introduction to Chinese Law, 2024 Spring
University of Chicago
Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, and Law, 2023 Spring
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
Contract Law, 2017-2019
Economic Analysis of Law, 2017-2019
Service Positions
Asian Law and Economics Association
Board Member, 2024-now
International Review of Law and Economics
Associate Editor, 2024-now
Guest Editor, Special Issue on Empirical Studies of the Chinese Judiciary: Growth, Reform, and Technological Transformation, 2026
Grants
PI: Can Artificial Intelligence Help Debt Mediation? A Field Experiment. Hong Kong GRF, 2026.
PI: The Revolving Door in the Chinese Judiciary and Its Economic Consequences: A Quantitative Study. Hong Kong GRF, 2025.
PI: The Rise and Limits of the Chinese Judiciary: Administrative Litigation in the Reform Period. Hong Kong GRF, 2024.
Co-PI: Algorithmic Bias, Economic Efficiency, and Social Welfare. Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) – Group Research Project 2024.
PI: Cameras in the Courtroom. Hong Kong GRF, 2023.
PI: Risk Prediction in Supervision Sites. National Key Research and Development Program of China, 2020. (科技部国家重点研发计划：服刑人员风险量化评估体系与预警模型研究。课题编号：2020YFC0833202)
PI: Judicial Performance and Economic Development 2008 to 2020: Index Construction and Empirical Analysis Based on Mass Judicial Decision Data. National Natural Science Foundation of China, 2020. (国家自然科学基金项目：司法效率与经济发展（2008-2020）：基于大规模裁判文书数据的指数构建与实证分析。课题编号：72003162)
PI: Big Data Analysis in Law and Policy Making. Shenzhen Government, China, 2018.
Awards
Outstanding young researcher award, HKU, 2024.