Hugh H. Kim

Email: hugh.kim 'at' moore.sc.edu

Research Interests:

    Financial Intermediation; Corporate Finance; Household Finance; Investment

Curriculum Vitae (updated: September 2024)

SSRN Page

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Affiliations:

Associate Professor of Finance (with tenure), Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, 2019 - present

Visiting Scholar, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 2013 - present


Assistant Professor of Finance, Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, 2016 - 2019

Assistant Professor of Finance, SKK Graduate School of Business, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea, 2013 - 2016

Visiting Scholar, Sloan School of Management, M.I.T., May - August 2015

Visiting Professor, KAIST Business School, KAIST, 2019-2021 (Summer)

Education:

University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School, Ph.D. in Applied Economics, 2013

University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School, M.S. in Applied Economics, 2011

Seoul National University, B.A. in Economics, 2004

Editorship:

    Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Editor (2024-present), Editorial Board (2019-2024)

   Asia-Pacific Journal of Financial Studies, Associate Editor (2021-present)

Publications:

1. "The Impact of Shrouded Fees: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in the Indian Mutual Funds Market" (with Santosh Anagol), American Economic Review 102(1):576-93, February 2012.  

  

2. "Time is Money: Rational Life Cycle Inertia and the Delegation of Investment Management" (with Raimond Maurer and Olivia S. Mitchell), Journal of Financial Economics 121(2): 424-447, August 2016.


3. "It Pays to Write Well" (with Byoung-Hyoun Hwang), Journal of Financial Economics 124(2): 373-394, May 2017.

        * Media mention: Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Harvard Law School Forum, Chief Executive


4. “Choosing a Financial Advisor: When and How to Delegate” (with Raimond Maurer, Olivia S. Mitchell) in Financial Decision Making and Retirement Security in Aging World. Eds. P. Brett Hammond, O. S. Mitchell, and S. Utkus. Oxford University Press, 2017.


5. "Information Spillover of Bailouts" Journal of Financial Intermediation, 43: 100807, July 2020.

         * Best Paper Award, Semi-finalist, FMA Annual Meeting (2013, Chicago) / Best Doctoral Dissertation Award, Winner, The Korea-America Finance Association (2012, Atlanta, GA)


6. "How Financial Literacy Shapes the Demand for Financial Advice at Older Ages" (with Raimond Maurer and Olivia S. Mitchell), Journal of the Economics of Ageing, 20: 100329, June 2021. 

         * Media mention: TIAA Institute


7. "Economic Policy Uncertainty and Bank Liquidity Hoarding" (with Allen Berger, Omrane Guedhami, Xinming Li), Journal of Financial Intermediation, 49: 100893, January 2022.


8. "Opaque Liability, Learning, and the Cost of Equity Capital for Insurers" (with Chia-Chun Chiang, Greg Niehaus), Journal of Risk and Insurance, 89(4), 1031-1076, December 2022. 


9. "The Consequences of Non-Trading Institutional Investors" (with Mohammad Irani), Financial Management, 52(3), 433-481, Autumn 2023.

    * Media mention: Citywire


10. "Bank Sentiment and Liquidity Hoarding" (with Allen Berger and Xiaonan (Flora) Ma), Contemporary Accounting Research, 41(3), 1513-1542, Fall 2024.

          * Banks with more negative sentiment – compiled from their annual reports – hoard more liquidity to the level unwarranted by economic fundamentals.  


11. "Stablecoins and Central Bank Digital Currency: Challenges and Opportunities" (with Jaewon Choi), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance, Forthcoming.

Working Papers:

1. "Bank Sentiment and Loan Loss Provisioning" (with Junsung Bae, Allen Berger, and Hyun-Soo Choi) 

          Banks with more negative sentiment increase their loan loss provisions above the level warranted by key economic fundamentals and their future loan charge-offs.  


2. "Tug of War in Corporate Environmental Lobbying" (with Byeong-Je An, Hyun-Soo Choi and Paul Youngwook Kim) 

          Firms with opposing environmental stances have to spend extra lobbying expenditures over their rivals, culminating in a tug of war. 


3. "Dishonest or Misunderstood? Corporate Environmental Commitment and the Value of Persistence" (with Hyun-Soo Choi and Yun-Soo Kim)

ESG commitment can increase firm value by maintaining, rather than further increasing, high ESG scores

         * Media mention: Duke University School of Law


4. "Setting the Wolf to Guard the Sheep: The Influence of Politicians' Asset Holdings on Economic Bill Proposals" (with Hyun-Soo Choi and Paul Youngwook Kim)

Congress members’ personal financial stance is a key driver of what economic bills will be proposed; congress members who have more real estate assets are less likely to propose economic bills that tighten the real estate market.


5. "Innovation Overload?" (with Byoung-Hyoun Hwang, Kai Wu)

Our analysis reveals that articles with one more writing fault per one hundred words receive 7% fewer citations.

  

6. "Pessimistic Fund Managers" (with Yongqiang Chu)

          We find that the pessimistic tone in managers’ letters to shareholders predicts superior future risk-adjusted returns 


7. Simplified Fee Disclosure and Attention to Mutual Fund Fees” (with Wenhao Yang)

Simplified fee disclosure improves attention to mutual fund fees only for the financially literate.

* Media mention: Citywire 

Teaching:

    Student Managed Investment Fund, UofSC (2020-present)

    Investment Management (Undergrad. Honor/MBA/PMBA), University of South Carolina (2016-present)

    Capital Budgeting (Full-time MBA/Professional MBA), SKK GSB (2015, 2016)

    Managerial Economics (Full-time MBA/Professional MBA/Executive MBA), SKK GSB (2014, 2015, 2016)

    Financial Management (Professional MBA), SKK GSB (2015)

    Economic Analysis (Full-time MBA/Professional MBA), SKK GSB (2013, 2014)

Dataset and codes: