Research
Book Chapters
Abstract
This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of text-as-data methods in the social sciences, with a focus on political science applications. Beginning with foundational approaches such as lexicon-based analyses and statistical scaling methods and advancing to topic modeling frameworks, it then examines the emergence of word embeddings and transformer revolution. Applications include measuring ideological positions, sentiment analysis, and framing detection. The discussion highlights methodological innovations in zero-shot and few-shot classification, cross-lingual analysis, and causal inference, alongside considerations of validity, ethics, and interpretability. Finally, the chapter explores future directions including multimodal integration and responsible artificial intelligence (AI) practices.
Abstract
Panel data, also called time-series cross-sectional (TSCS) data, enable researchers to harness both cross-unit variation and within-unit dynamics to answer key questions in social sciences, from policy diffusion to regime change. This article surveys major panel data estimation techniques useful for social science researchers, highlighting their assumptions, strengths, and contexts of use. I begin by defining TSCS structures and illustrating common pitfalls of naïve pooling, before introducing two-way fixed-effects models for controlling unit- and time-invariant confounders. Next, I review conventional difference-in-differences designs and their extension to staggered adoption settings, emphasizing recent developments to correct bias when treatments roll out at different times. Building on these foundations, I delve into dynamic panel estimators, including the Arellano–Bond and system GMM frameworks, and the PanelMatch method, which matches on longitudinal histories to bolster causal identification. Throughout, research applications exemplify each method's potential and limitations.
Working Papers
Abstract
Domestic political structures play a decisive role in shaping how governments translate formal commitments to international institutions into actual policy behavior. In the context of the WTO dispute settlement system, firms that benefit from anti-dumping duties depend on stable political channels to maintain these protections once a dispute is initiated. When the stability of these channels is disrupted, the durability of firm influence weakens and the continuation of protective measures becomes uncertain. Incumbent turnover provides an exogenous shock that exposes this vulnerability by threatening established access points and raising the possibility that accumulated influence will erode. Firms respond by expanding defensive lobbying intended to preserve existing policy, and a difference-in-differences design shows that respondent-side firms increase lobbying expenditures following incumbent turnover. Survival analysis further clarifies the mechanism. Defensive lobbying prolongs the duration of disputes, yet this effect is substantially stronger when political leadership remains constant. When comparing among the top spending firms in lobbying, the delaying effect of lobbying is pronounced only in the absence of incumbent turnover. Under political transition, the same level of lobbying produces a much weaker delay, indicating that established channels are less effective and that maintaining anti-dumping duties becomes more challenging for respondent firms. These empirical patterns show how domestic political shocks and firm-level incentives constrain timely compliance and weaken core enforcement functions of the WTO, revealing a structural limitation in which entrenched domestic political actors can reduce the system's capacity to achieve the outcomes envisioned by its legal commitments.
Abstract
The rise of superstar firms has accompanied the expansion of an international intellectual property (IP) regime that extends beyond the standards established in the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Despite sustained resistance from developing countries, the United States has successfully promoted TRIPS-plus provisions through preferential trade agreements, with other advanced economies following. This study attributes US success in diffusing TRIPS-plus standards to the interaction between corporate lobbying and development finance allocation. Using National Trade Estimate (NTE) reports from 19 to 2022,
Abstract
Lobbying disclosures often hide what firms lobby about, but we introduce new data and exploit timing to show that multinational firms lobby intensively about preferential trade agreements (PTAs). We argue that some firms lobby for ratification, which lowers tariffs on imported intermediate inputs, while others lobby to shape PTA terms to influence behindthe-border regulations. Our empirical analysis untangles these incentives by identifying groups of firms with different motivations and investigating which branches of government they lobby and when. We use PanelMatch (Imai, Kim and Wang 2023) to conduct staggered diff-in-diff analyses at the firm level, using Fortune Global 5 firms and a comprehensive set of US PTA negotiations. Pharmaceutical firms lobby for intellectual property rights protection; firms represented on the US Trade Representative’s general policy making committee lobby to shape PTA provisions; other firms lobby for ratification of PTAs with countries where they have investments. 1 1
Abstract
US financial firms are widely believed to influence the politics of the International Monetary Fund, but the effects pose a puzzle: bank influence is believed to increase conditionality that favors banks, but to decrease conditionality for their biggest borrowers. We use LDA data on lobbying in the United States and IMF Monitor data on conditionality to test the hypothesis that lobbying influences conditionality. We find that lobbying by nonbankfinancialfirmsisassociatedwithincreasednumbersoffinancialconditions, quantitative performance criteria (QPCs), and labor-market conditions. Bank lobbying, in contrast, has both effects. When banks lobby about finance, borrowing countries receive more conditionality; but when banks lobby about banking, borrowers accept less financial conditionality and fewer QPCs. When banks are worried, they lobby about banking, and this undermines the IMF’s leverage to obtain the policy reforms that the banks most prefer. We go on to investigate firm-level responses to the initiation of IMF program negotiations and find that US financial firms shift their lobbying efforts when the Fund negotiates with countries where they have investments. Money-center banks and non-banking financial firms shift in opposite directions, which makes their lobbying portfolios converge: banks reduce their lobbying about banking and increase lobbying about finance, while non-bank financial firms decrease lobbying about finance and increase lobbying about banking.
Works in Progress
Research on development finance institutions (DFIs) has concentrated on state motives, governance, and project outcomes, with limited attention to how private firms use these instruments to pursue strategic objectives. This paper reframes projects of the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) as geoeconomic tools through which firms, especially in geopolitically sensitive sectors, integrate corporate political activity with development finance. By linking congressional and executive lobbying disclosures to DFC project records, the study analyzes how corporate sponsors recalibrate lobbying across venues, policy domains, and project phases, focusing on energy projects where development finance intersects with strategic competition, supply security, and geopolitical risk. PanelMatch estimates indicate a systematic temporal shift in lobbying venues: energy sector sponsors increase congressional lobbying during the first two years after project implementation, while lobbying directed at the Executive Office of the President and the Department of Energy peaks two to three years later, as congressional activity declines. Disaggregated evidence also reveals risk-contingent behavior: sponsors of projects in financially risky recipient countries sharply increase budget-related congressional lobbying immediately after implementation, but this surge fades within a few years, consistent with short-term political insurance rather than sustained influence investment.