Ivy Liu

Assistant Professor of Public Policy Leadership

Ivy Liu

Research Interests

Organizational Learning • Public Service Innovation • Policy Process • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion • Leadership • Public Policy Analysis • Quasi-Experiment, Experiment and Machine Learning in Policy Studies • Social Network Analysis

Biography

Dr. Ivy Liu conducts research and teaching on public policy and management. The overarching theme of her research relates to public sector innovation for economic development and community building. With specializations in statistics and economics, she employs quasi-experiments and experiments to investigate how state and local governments learn, adopt, evaluate, and terminate their policies in these areas. Additionally, she applies advanced network analysis and spatial econometric models to examine how executive leadership promotes learning and innovation across US governments. She is also interested in how state and local governments balance efficiency and equity in response to natural disasters, such as hurricanes and floods, and public health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Publications

This study investigates the intentional termination decision of a public health tool (i.e. face-mask policy) in the absence of knowledge regarding the duration of the pandemic. We acknowledge that policy termination is a complicated decision-making process that necessitates multiple considerations. 

Yi, H., & Liu, I. (2022). Executive Leadership, Policy Tourism, and Policy Diffusion among Local GovernmentsPublic Administration Review82(6), 1024-1041.

Liu, I. S., & Yi, H. (2024). Member duality and policy tourism: Learning in interlocal policy networksPublic Administration.

Landers, J., & Liu, I. State Corporate Income Tax and Employment Gains in Manufactures and Retail Sectors. Economic Development Quarterly. (Forthcoming)

Education

Ph.D. Public Policy Leadership, Ohio State University Main Campus (2024)