Sung-Ha Hwang

Ph.D. in Economics & in Mathematics

KAIST Endowed Chair Professor

Professor of Economics

College of Business

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Seoul, Korea

Email: sungha.email (at) gmail.com

          sungha (at) kaist.ac.kr

CV

I finished my first Ph. D in economics May 2009 (Dissertation Title: Three Essays on Conflict and Cooperation) and the second Ph.D. in mathematics Sept 2011 (Dissertation Title: Spatial Evolutionary Game Theory: Deterministic Approximations, Decompositions, and Hierarchical Multi-scale Models).

My research interest in economics lies in behavioral economics and evolutionary game theory. Specifically I have been working on the following topics: conflict theory, social preferences, optimal incentives for cooperation in public goods problems, and stochastic evolutionary game theory. My research area in mathematics includes probability theory and stochastic processes.

Publications & Forthcoming

• Social Conflict and the Evolution of Unequal Conventions, 2024, with Samuel Bowles and Suresh Naidu. Forthcoming at Journal of the European Economic Association

• Public Goods in Networks with Constraints on Sharing ,  2024, with Stefanie Gerke,  Gregory Gutin, and Philip Neary. Forthcoming at Journal of Economic Theory

• Wars of Attrition with Spending Constraints, 2024, with Youngwoo Koh, Forthcoming at International Journal of Economic Theory

• Constrained Contests with a Continuum of Battles, with Youngwoo Koh and Jingfeng Lu,  Games and Economic Behavior, 2023, Vol. 142, pp. 992-1011

• Election Contests with Endogenous Spending Constraints, with Youngwoo Kho, 2023, Journal of Economic Theory and Econometrics (SCOPUS), 34, 26-43 

• Tariff Diversity and FTA Network, with Jihwan Do, Jung Hur, and  Larry D. Qiu, Review of World Economics, 2023, Vol. 159, pp. 333-360 

• The Effect of Social Distancing on the Reach of an Epidemic in Social Networks, with Gregory Gutin, Tomohiro Hirano, Philip Neary and Alexis Akira Toda. Journal of Economic Interaction & Coordination, 2021, Vol. 16, pp. 629-647

• Positive Feedback in Coordination Games: Stochastic Evolutionary Dynamics and the Logit Choice Rule, with Luc Rey-Bellet.  Games and Economic Behavior, 2021, Vol. 126, pp.355-373

• Simple Characterizations of Potential Games and Zero-sum Equivalent Games, with Luc Rey-Bellet, 2020, Journal of Economic Theory and Econometrics (SCOPUS), 31,1-13

• Strategic Decompositions of Normal Form Games: Potential Games and Zero-sum Games,  with Luc Rey-Bellet. Games and Economic Behavior,  2020, Vol. 122, pp.370-390 (Earlier version: Decompositions of two player games: potential, zero-sum, and stable games,  2011)

• Conventional contracts, intentional behavior and logit choice:Equality without symmetry, Games and Economic Behavior, with Wooyoung Lim, Philip Neary, and Jonathan Netwon, 2018, Vol.110, pp.273-294

• The Evolution of Egalitarian Sociolinguistic Conventions, with Suresh Naidu and Samuel Bowles,  2017, American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, Vol. 107, pp.572-577.

• Conflict Technology in Cooperation, 2017,  (Previous title, Larger groups may alleviate collective action problems), Journal of Public Economic Theory, Vol. 19, pp.875-898.

• Class Alliances and Conflict: An Explanation of Political Transitions in Nineteenth-century Europe, 2018, Metroeconomica, Vol. 69, pp.16-38

• Conspicuous Consumption, Social Status Seeking, and Income Inequality, with Jungmin Lee, 2017, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 69, pp.870-896.

• Payoff dependent dynamics and coordination games, with Jonathan Newton, 2017, Economic Theory,  Vol.64, pp. 589-604.

• Evolution of Altruistic Preferences among Boundedly Rational Agents, with Nayoung Kim, 2015, Korean Economic Review, 31 (2), 239-266.

• Optimal Incentives with State-dependent Preferences, with Samuel Bowles, 2014. Journal of Public Economic Theory, 16 (5), 681-705

• Deterministic Equations for Stochastic Spatial Evolutionary Games, with Markos Katsoulakis and Luc Rey-Bellet, 2013, Theoretical Economics, 8, 829-874

• Is Altruism Bad for Cooperation?, with Samuel Bowles, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 83, pp 330-341, 2012.

• Technology of Military Conflict, Military Spending, and War, Journal of Public Economics, 96, pp 226-236, 2012. (Previously circulated under the title "Contest Success Fuctions: Theory and Evidence".)

• Evolutionary Bargaining with Intentional Idiosyncratic Play, with Suresh Naidu and Samuel Bowles, Economics Letters, 109, pp. 31-33, 2010

• Strong Reciprocity and Team Production: Theory and Evidence, With Jeffery Carpenter, Samuel Bowles, and Herbert Gintis, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 71, 2, pp.221-232, 2009

• Social Preferences and Public Economics: Mechanism Design when Social Preferences Depend on Incentives, With Samuel Bowles, Journal of Public Economics, 92, 8-9, pp 1811-1820, 2008

Book chapter

• How Institutions and Cultures Change: An Evolutionary Perspective, with Samuel Bowles, Jung-Kyoo Choi, Suresh Naidu, 2021, The Handbook of Historical Economics, (ed.) Alberto Bisin and Giovanni Federico, pp 391-433

Working Papers  

• Revenue Comparisons of Auctions with Ambiguity Averse Sellers, 2022, with Sosung Baik

• Auction design with ambiguity: Optimality of the first-price and all-pay auctions, 2021, with Sosung Baik

• Incentives, Socialization, and Civic Preferences, 2017, with Samuel Bowles

Conference Presentations 

• Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory: SAET, Portugal, July 2017

• Games 2016, Maastricht University, July 2016.

• Analytic Political Economy Workshops, University of Norte Damme, April 2015.

• Econometric Society Asian Meeting, Taipei, June 2014

• Public Economic Theory 2013, Lisbon, June 2013

• Games 2012, Istanbul, 22-26 July

• Public Economic Theory 2012, Taipei, 12-14 June 2012

• Oberwolfach Seminar: The Ergodic Theory of Markov Processes (Stochastic Partial Differential Equations), 24-30 Oct 2010, Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, Germany

• Eurocores Programme TECT (The Evolution of Cooperation and Trading), Final Conference, 15-17 Sept 2010, Collegium Budapest, Hungary.

• Multiscale Modeling and Simulation in Science, 23-29 Nov 2009, Nordic Institute of Theoretical Physics, Stockholm, Sweden

• Agent-Based Complex Systems, 12-24 Oct 2009, Institute for Pure & Applied Mathematics, UCLA (present a poster)

• Eurocores Programme TECT, Cooperation Through the Ages: The Social and Psychological Dynamics of Cooperation and Punishment, 25-27 Apr 2008, Sitges, Barcelona, Spain

Visits

• Santa Fe Institute (July, 2015, July, 2014, Jul 2013, 2-11 Jul 2012, 26-31 Jul 2009, 14-28 Jul 2007)

SEMINARS

• HKUST (2015 F), UMASS (2014F), Sungkyunkwan Univ (2014S), Seoul National Univ.(2012F), UINST (2012 F), University of Sydney (2012F), University of New South Wales (2012F), Hallym University (2012S), Korea Universit (2011F), University of Massachusetts (2011S).