Youngbin (Ben) Kim

Working Projects

Job Market Paper

"Not One Story: Multiple Trauma and the Politics of Remembering"

My job market paper examines the heterogeneity of regional memory and historical trauma within a single polity, drawing on original data on Japanese colonial forced labor and Korean War civilian massacres. The observational analysis and preliminary results are complete, and an agent-based model of memory transmission has been finalized. To recover individual-level causal pathways, I am planning a survey experiment in South Korea, currently under IRB review with funding pending.

Proposal Draft (PDF)

Empathetic Grounds

"How Land Claims Shape Outsider Support and Justify Actions in Conflict"

This project investigates how land claims shape the support of outside observers for parties in conflict. Study 1 identifies a significant effect of land claims on political attitudes; Study 2 tests the persistence of these effects and their emotional and behavioral echoes. The paper is currently in its finalizing stage.

Draft (Forthcoming)

Dissertation Project

Victimhood narratives, historical trauma, and democratic discourse

My dissertation develops across three chapters. The first chapter studies how third parties respond to others' claims of victimhood. The second chapter turns to those who are themselves the subject of historical victimhood narratives. The third chapter analyzes the mechanisms through which such narratives deepen polarization and strain democratic societies, and is currently at the research proposal stage.

Under Review

Youngbin Kim & Raymond Kim. "Korean Free Economic Zones (KFEZs) and Regional Unemployment: Application of Generalized Synthetic Control." Structural Change and Economic Dynamics (under review).

This paper estimates the causal effect of Korean Free Economic Zones on regional unemployment, using a generalized synthetic control approach applied to monthly region-level data across South Korea.