Kisoo Kim

Welcome! I am a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Effective Lawmaking, the University of Virginia. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy in 2025.

My research examines how political institutions and information shape democratic accountability in American politics. A central part of my work focuses on how elections affect legislators' behavior, using econometric methods for causal inference to study their policy stances and legislative productivity.

kisoo@virginia.edu

curriculum vitae

Publication

Fowler, Anthony and Kisoo Kim. 2022. An Information-Based Explanation for Partisan Media Sorting. Journal of Theoretical Politics. Replication Data.

Winner of Ostrom Award in 2023 given to the best article published in the journal within the previous two calendar years (2021, 2022) by the Formal Theory Section of the American Political Science Association

Working Papers

Kim, Kisoo. Lame Duck by Primary: Effects of Electoral Incentives on U.S. House Representatives R&R, Quarterly Journal of Political Science

Winner of Virginia Gray Graduate Student Research Award in 2024 from the Political Organizations and Parties Section of the American Political Science Association

Kim, Kisoo. Strategic Media Bias Under review

Work in Progress

Legislators’ Responses to Challengers with Different Ideologies

Impact of Mass Gun Shootings on Political Donation

Accountability in Darkness: The Impact of Local Newspaper Closures on Legislators (with Craig Volden)

Anticipation of Electoral Competition and Legislative Behavior (with Rohen Shah)

Teaching

Instructor

University of Virginia

Politics of Public Policy, 2026 (scheduled)

Seeing Politics through Theory and Data, 2026 (scheduled)

University of Chicago

Mathematical Methods for Social Science (Syllabus), 2022, 2021

Teaching Evaluations: 2022, 2021

Teaching Assistant

University of Chicago

Statistics for Data Analysis II: Regressions (Master's, Head TA), Professors Dmitri Koustas, Yukiko Asai, Austin Wright, Winter 2025

Principles of Microeconomics and Public Policy II (Master's, Head TA), Professors Konstantin Sonin, Navin Kumar, Hyuk-soo Kwon, Winter 2025

Data and Programming for Public Policy (Master's, Head TA), Professor Nathan Barker, Spring 2024

Analytical Politics 2 (Master's, Head TA), Professors Luis Martinez, Zhaosong Ruan, Arduino Tomasi, Winter 2024

Game Theory (Ph.D.), Professor Konstantin Sonin, Fall 2023, 2022

Strategic Decision Making in Public Policy, Professor Konstantin Sonin Fall, 2023

Applied Econometrics, Professor Christopher Clapp, Fall 2023

Microeconomics 2 (Ph.D.), Professor Scott Ashworth, Winter 2022

Game Theory (Ph.D.), Professor Roger Myerson, Fall 2021

Formal Models of Domestic Politics (Ph.D.), Professor Scott Gehlbach, Winter 2020

Analytical Politics 1 (Master's, Head TA), Professors Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, Wioletta Dziuda, Alexander Fouirnaies, Fall 2020

Mathematical Methods in Social Science (Ph.D. Math Camp), Summer 2020

Political Economy 2 (Ph.D.), Professor Peter Buisseret, Winter 2020

Political Economy 1 (Ph.D.), Professor Konstantin Sonin, Fall 2019

Data and Policy Summer Scholar Program, Professor Austin Wright, Summer, 2019

Math Camp for Incoming Master's Students, Summer 2019

Microeconomics for Public Policy (Undergraduate), Professor Sabina Shaikh, Spring, 2019