Song Kim

Song Kim is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Faculty Affiliate at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). He holds a Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University, where he was awarded the Harold W. Dodds Fellowship (2012-2013). His research focuses on International Political Economy, Formal and Quantitative Methodology, and Big Data analysis of international trade. He is particularly known for his work on firm-level political incentives in trade liberalization, which earned him the 2015 Mancur Olson Award and the 2018 Michael Wallerstein Award for best published article in political economy.

Kim develops computational methods for analyzing trade data, including dimension reduction and visualization techniques. He maintains two key databases: LobbyView (tracking firm lobbying efforts) and TradeLab (for trade policy analysis). His research has been published in top journals such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and International Organization.

• Educations: Ph.D. in Politics (Princeton University), B.A. not explicitly stated.

His research interests include the dynamical evolution of lobbying networks, strategic links between political donations and lobbying, and the political origins of trade regulations. He also contributes methodological innovations, such as two-way fixed effects models and matching methods for causal inference with panel data.

Awards:

• Mancur Olson Award (2015)
• Michael Wallerstein Award (2018)
• Harold W. Dodds Fellowship (2012-2013)

Advising & Grants: No listed advisees. His work is supported by MIT’s IDSS and institutional funding. He collaborates on software tools like the 'wfe' and 'concordance' R packages, advancing computational social science.

Labs/Teams: Associated with MIT’s Political Science Department and IDSS, focusing on interdisciplinary projects in trade, lobbying, and quantitative methods.