Kenneth A. Kim is an American financial economist and an academic. He is a Kaisa Endowed Chair Professor at Tongji University.
Kim's work has focused on behavioral finance, market microstructure, and corporate governance, focusing on investor behavior and institutions in Asian and emerging markets. He was named among the best economics and finance scientists in China for 2026.
Education Kim completed his B.A. in economics at the University of Michigan from 1986 to 1990. He obtained his M.B.A. from the University of Detroit from 1990 to 1992 and a PhD in Finance from the University of Rhode Island in 1997.
Career Kim began his academic career in 1997 as an Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. From 2002 to 2007, he worked as an Assistant Professor of Finance at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he was subsequently promoted to Associate Professor of Finance from 2007 to 2011. From 2011 to 2015, he was a Professor of Finance at Renmin University of China and concurrently held the Xin Ao Chair Professorship from 2013 to 2015. Since 2015, he has been a professor of Finance at Tongji University. In addition, he has held the Kaisa Endowed Chair Professorship at Tongji University since 2021.
Kim also has experience in both the public and private sectors. During 1998 and 1999, he worked as a Senior Financial Economist at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He also worked in the financial industry as a Chief Financial Strategist and Senior Economist.
Research Kim's research focuses on empirical questions in corporate finance and financial markets. His work has compared institutional settings across markets. Much of his work has examined large-sample data analysis, focusing on how firm behavior and market outcomes are shaped by governance structures and regulatory environments.
A central theme of Kim's research is corporate governance, particularly how ownership structure, managerial incentives, and board characteristics affect corporate decision-making. He has examined topics such as investment efficiency, financing choices, and firm performance. His work also examines capital market behavior, including how market frictions, investor biases, and institutional constraints influence prices and trading activity.
In more recent research, Kim has explored how firms respond to external shocks and policy changes, including trade tensions and regulatory reforms, as well as the role of innovation and R&D in firm resilience. He has also analyzed relationship-based financing and the relative importance of social and political connections in access to capital.
Selected articles Kim, K. A., & Rhee, S. G. (1997). Price limit performance: evidence from the Tokyo Stock Exchange. the Journal of Finance, 52(2), 885-901. Ferris, S. P., Kim, K. A., & Kitsabunnarat, P. (2003). The costs (and benefits?) of diversified business groups: The case of Korean chaebols. Journal of Banking & Finance, 27(2), 251-273. Chen, G., Kim, K. A., Nofsinger, J. R., & Rui, O. M. (2007). Trading performance, disposition effect, overconfidence, representativeness bias, and experience of emerging market investors. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 20(4), 425-451. Jiang, F., & Kim, K. A. (2015). Corporate governance in China: A modern perspective. Journal of Corporate Finance, 32, 190-216. Jiang, F., & Kim, K. A. (2020). Corporate governance in China: A survey. Review of Finance, 24(4), 733-772.
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