Research Projects

Working Papers

How Sanctions Reshape Trade and Contract Bargaining: Evidence from Export Controls on Russia

(solo-authored, Presented at APSA 2025, MPSA 2026)

When governments impose export controls on a target state, they generate substantial uncertainty even for firms in non-sanctioning countries. These third-party firms face a choice: increase exports of sanctioned products to the target state, or refrain from doing so to avoid costs and risks generated by sanctions. I argue that their decisions vary across products because their bargaining power vis-a-vis importers in the target state also varies across products. When importers are more dependent on third-party firms, exporters hold stronger bargaining power. It allows third party firms to secure exporter-favorable contracts that facilitate sanction-busting exports while limiting their exposure to costs and risks generated by sanctions. In particular, exporters' bargaining power is greater in products where importers depended more heavily on sanctioning-country suppliers before sanctions and that are more difficult to substitute with other products. This paper tests these arguments in the case of export controls on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, using 34 million transaction-level records from Russian customs data matched to firm ownership data. The results show that exports by third party firms significantly increased in Russia's high-dependence products, while there was no such increase in low-dependence products. Analysis of the novel shipping contract data shows that in these same products where Russia's dependence was greatest, third-party firms secured contracts that shifted costs and risks onto Russian importers. The findings highlight contract bargaining as a central mechanism of sanction busting and show that even when sanctions do not fully cut off trade, they can still impose costs on the target state by forcing importers to accept less favorable contractual terms.

Targeted Sanctions and Maritime Shipping

(with Christina Davis. Presented at APSA 2025, MPSA 2026)

Targeted sanctions on vessels have been a prominent tool for disrupting maritime commerce and imposing costs on targeted states. Do these sanctions impose substantial costs, and if not, why do they fail to do so? Using satellite-based vessel-tracking data from 2013 to 2022, we show that targeted sanctions produce only a temporary decline in sanctioned vessels’ port calls. Port calls fall immediately after designation, but shipping activity returns to pre-sanction levels within about four months. These short-lived effects are further offset as sanctioned ships adopt dark fleet activities that disable tracking systems while at sea to conceal movements and avoid detection by sanctioning governments. These activities allow sanctioned vessels to evade monitoring and continue operations. Their activity depends on third-party states willing to receive them in ports. We examine different pressures that shape where the sanctioned ships visit. Using event data on bilateral political relations, we find that cooperative political events with the targeted state, such as diplomatic visits and bilateral agreements, increase port calls from sanctioned vessels. This relationship is stronger than the role of political relations with the United States, and remains significant after accounting for bilateral trade with both the targeted state and the United States. These findings highlight the limits of weaponizing maritime shipping, where evasive behavior by sanctioned vessels and non-cooperation by third-party states undermine the impact of targeted sanctions.

Persuasion and Backlash from International Law in Global Swing States 

(with Stephen Chaudoin, Presented at MPSA 2024, APSA 2025, PEIO 2026)

When one country or international organization makes accusations about violations of in- ternational law, the intended audience is often third-party states who might support punishing the offender. When do these accusations persuade publics in those countries and when do they trigger backlash? We show that reactions to accusations about international law violations are consistent with a theoretical model that allows for both types of responses – persuasion and backlash – depending on the audience member’s prior beliefs and trust in the information source. We provide evidence from large survey experiments in four global swing states: India, South Africa, Turkey, and Indonesia. Swing states are where persuasion or backlash matter most, since allegations about international law could conceivably tilt their support toward the accuser or the accused. In our survey experiments, when the International Criminal Court makes accusations that Russia violated international law, this persuades certain subsets of the population to support sanctions and assistance for Ukraine. When the United States makes an identical accusation, this fails to persuade, and often backfires, because of the United States’ lack of credibility as an accuser. We further show how accusations affect perceptions of the accuser, not just the accused. We show a dynamic feedback loop, where information sent today can increase or decrease views of the credibility of the information source. This can then magnify or mute the effect of future accusations. Accusations by the ICC improve respondents’ views of the Court’s credibility. Accusations by the United States further undermine its credibility.

Competitive Cooperation? Rivalry and Public Support of International Organizations (with Hyunso Oh)

Could public support for international organizations (IOs) survive amid geopolitical rivalry? Contrary to popular expectation that a rival's participation could lead to backlash against IOs, we argue that rivalry can strengthen the domestic backing of costly support for IOs. We test this claim using paired survey experiments in the two biggest players in the multilateral stage--United States and China--focusing on the cases of United Nations and the Paris Agreement. In line with our theory of competitive cooperation, we find that both U.S. and Chinese citizens are more likely to support increased funding to the IOs when informed about a rival country's boost in funding. For Americans, the support operates through competitive perceptions of national influence within IOs, whereas the mechanism is less salient among the Chinese respondents. Against received wisdom, we find evidence that Americans with high levels of national chauvinism and support for the Republican Party are also, if not more, likely to lend support for increased IO funding. We further show that such increased support is not accompanied by a broader call for unilateralism or other exclusionary arrangements. Our findings reveal the geopolitical logic that underpins public support for even costly contributions to IOs.

Work in Progress

Optimizing Export Controls on Chips (with Yunho Jin)

We explore the challenge of designing optimal export controls for AI training hardware, particularly GPUs, to balance U.S. national security and economic competitiveness. GPUs are pivotal for AI development, with implications for both industrial innovation and military capabilities. Our framework focuses on restricting access to advanced GPUs by geopolitical rivals, such as China, while minimizing the economic impact on U.S. firms. We propose frameworks to evaluate export controls, incorporating key GPU performance metrics—compute capability, memory bandwidth, and interconnect bandwidth—and their role in AI development. A performance modeling tool will assess the time, energy, and carbon footprint required for AI training, providing insights into the optimal boundaries for export controls. By addressing the tension between industry advocacy for narrowly tailored policies and government priorities for national security, we aim to offer actionable recommendations to policymakers. This work bridges technical and policy considerations to create a balanced approach to export controls.

Demystifying Kim's Kingdom: Public, Elites, and Propaganda in North Korea Newspapers (with Nayun Kim)

This project investigates North Korea's elite-level authoritarian information control with a comparison to public-level information control through large textual datasets including official newspapers and party propaganda. This dataset is the first attempt to systematically analyze North Korea's domestic politics from the 1940s to the present. 

Targeted sanctions and the behavior of drug trafficking organizations (with Julio S. Solís Arce)

This paper analyzes how US sanctions affect the behavior of drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) in Mexico. DTOs strategically choose to use violence to hold influence in their operating regions. When facing economic sanctions, we expect DTOs to exert violence to citizens to cope with unexpected negative income shocks.

Publication

Lim, T. (2023). Fragmented Labor Regime: FDI, Labor Regulation, and Workers’ Protests in China. Journal of East Asian Studies

Lim, T., & Kim, S. E. (2022). Buying influence? Rotating leadership in ASEAN and allocation of Chinese foreign aid. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific.

Other Publications

(Book Chapter) "Political Foundation of Educational Policy: the Generational Effects on Public Education Spending in South Korea" (with Dong-Hun Kim and Chanwoong Yoon, in Korean), in Market and Democracy in the Era of Inequality

Political Foundation of Educational Policy: the Generational Effects on Public Education Spending in South Korea. Korean Journal of Political Science. 28(2) (with Dong-Hun Kim and Chanwoong Yoon, in Korean)