Areas of Research Interest: International Agricultural Trade and Development, Global Value Chains, Structural Transformation, Migration, Political Economics.
Research: Dr. Lim’s research lies at the intersection of international trade, development, and agricultural economics. His research includes the following topics: global value chains, structural transformation, trade policy, migration, and agrarian culture.
"Post-Coup Sanctions and Thailand's Agricultural Trade," with Wisarut Suwanprasert, The World Economy (2025).
"Inequitable Distribution of Risks Associated with Occupational Heat Exposure Driven by Trade," with Li et al., Nature Communications (2025).
"Price Dynamics and Weather Anomalies in Agricultural Supply Chains," with Atanu Ghoshray & Madhusudan Ghosh, Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics (2025, forthcoming).
"Foreign Direct Investment and Structural Transformation: The Case of Viet Nam," with Wannaphong Durongkaveroj and Anh Nguyen, Pursuing Inclusive Economic Development in Asia, Asian Development Bank Institute Book Series (2025).
"Understanding Inequality in U.S. Farm Subsidies Using a Large-scale Administrative Data," with Jisang Yu, American Journal of Agricultural Economics (AJAE) (2024).
"Network Dynamics of Firms in Global Agricultural Value Chains," with Anne Beck and Daria Taglioni, Food Policy (2024); World Bank Policy Research Working Paper - 10774.
"Geopolitical Risks and Agricultural Trade Diversification in Southern Africa: Port-level Evidence from the Russia-Ukraine War," with Saera Oh, Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (JAAEA) (2024).
“Foreign Aid, Exchange Rate, and Agricultural Trade in Developing Countries," with Kyunghun Kim, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy (AEPP) (2024).
"Food Global Value Chains and Obesity in Low-and-Middle Income Countries," with Reem Hashad & Kibrom Abay, Food Policy (2024).
"Robust Policy Frameworks for Strengthening the Resilience and Sustainability of Agri-Food Global Value Chains," with Titus Awokuse, Fabio Santeramo, and Sandro Steinbach, Food Policy (2024).
"Shifting Trade Winds: Southeast Asia’s Response to the United States–People’s Republic of China Trade Dispute," with Anh Nguyen, Asian Development Review (2024).
“Global Agricultural Value Chains and Structural Transformation”, In Pol Antràs and David Zilberman ed. Risks in Agricultural Supply Chains, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), University of Chicago Press (2023), [VoxEU-CEPR].
“Food Security, Agri-Food Trade and COVID-19: Evidence from South Asia”, with Sylvanus K. Afesorgbor, Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (JAAEA) (2023).
Sunghun Lim (2022). “Global Agricultural Value Chains and Structural Transformation”, David Zilberman and Pol Antràs (Editors), NBER Book series, Risks in Agricultural Supply Chains, the University of Chicago Press (In-press).
Choi, Jaerim & Lim, Sunghun (2022), “Tariffs, Agricultural Subsidies, and the 2020 US Presidential Election,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics (AJAE), Forthcoming.
Marc F. Bellemare, Jeff R. Bloem, & Sunghun Lim (2022), “Producers, Consumers, and Value Chains in Developing Countries”, Chris Barrett and David Just (Editors), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, Volume 6, Elsevier.
Sunghun Lim and SongYi Paik (2022). “The Impact of Immigration Enforcement on Agricultural Employment: Evidence from the US E-Verify Policy,” Applied Economics.
Sunghun Lim & Sie Won Kim (2022). “Global Agricultural Value Chains and Employment," Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (JAAEA).
Marc F. Bellemare & Sunghun Lim (2018), “In All Shapes and Colors: Varieties of Contract Farming”, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 40(3): 379-401.
Ph.D. University of Minnesota, Applied Economics, 2016-2020
M.S. University of California-Davis, Agricultural and Resource Economics, 2013-2015
B.A. University of California-Davis, Economics, 2010-2013
AGEC 7233. Global Value Chains in Agriculture (Graduate)
AGEC 7613. International Agricultural Trade (Graduate, 2022 Fall)
AGEC 4613. International Agricultural Trade (Undergraduate, 2022 Fall)
Selected Grants:
USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)-AFRI Grant: Economics, Markets and Trade, “Global Implications of the Russia-Ukraine War for Agricultural Trade and Value Chains, Commodity Prices, and Cross-border Investment,” 2023-2027, Co-PI, Amount awarded: $ 800,000.
USDA NIFA-AFRI Conference funding for the 2022 International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium (IATRC), “Workshop on Transforming Agricultural Global Value Chains”, Co-PI, Amount awarded: $50,000.
USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Capacity Building Grants for Non-Land-Grant Colleges of Agriculture Program (NLGCA), 2021-2023, Co-PI, Amount awarded: $150,000.
The International Research and Development Seed Grants, “Economic Diplomacy, WTO Trade Disputes and Agri-Food Trade between Canada and United States,” Texas Tech University, 2021-2022, PI.
Selected Awards:
The 2025 Farm Foundation Agricultural Economics Fellow (Link).
President (2023 - present), USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Hatch Multistate Research Group, S1072: U.S. Agricultural Trade and Policy in a Dynamic Global Market Environment.
The US Universities Representative of the Executive Committee, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium (IATRC), 2025-2027.
Program Committee, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium (IATRC), 2024 -2026.
Topic Leader, International Development: Trade, Markets, and Policy, Service, Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA), Term: 2022-2023.
Organizing Committee member, 2022 International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium (IATRC) Annual Meeting.
2021 Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Annual Meeting International Section Session Organizer and Moderator, “Global Agriculture in Flux: Pandemic, Trade Wars, Supply Chains, and Developing Country Markets” in August 2021.
2021 Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Annual Meeting Selected Presentation Reviewer.
Best Doctoral Dissertation Award, Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, 2020. Best Teaching Assistant Award of the 2018-19 for Ph.D. level classes, Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, 2019.
EDITORSHIP FOR ACADEMIC JOURNALS
Guest Co-Editor. Special Issue Proposal for Food Policy, “Transforming Global Agri-Food Value Chains”,
2022-2024.
ACADEMIC SERVICES FOR INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Contributor. FAO 2020 The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets. Agricultural markets and
sustainable development: Global value chains, smallholder farmers and digital innovations. Rome, FAO.
ISSN 2663-8207
ACADEMIC SERVICES FOR ACADEMIC SOCIETY
President-Elect (2023), USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Hatch Multistate
Research Group, S1072: U.S. Agricultural Trade and Policy in a Dynamic Global Market Environment.
Organizing committee for the 2022 International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
Topic Leader, Agricultural & Applied Economics Association: International Development: Trade,
Markets, and Policy, 2022-2023.
Member, The International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium, 2021-present
INVITED PRESENTATION
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), invited Research Seminar, Virtual, November 4, 2022.
Invited Presentation, the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Commodity & Energy Markets Association (CEMA 2022), Chicago, June 21-22, 2022
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Conference on Risks in Agricultural Supply Chains on May 20, 2021.
Research Seminar, The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Kansas City, MI, January 2020.
The FAO International Workshop, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Trade and Markets Division, Rome, Italy, 2020.
Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Preconference (Handbook of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 6), “Producers, Consumers, and Value Chains in Developing Countries”, online, March 2021.
CONFERENCE
PRESENTATIONS INTERNATIONAL (Non-US) CONFERENCES The Annual Conference of The Agricultural Economics Society, KU Leuven, Belgium, April 4-6, 2022 3rd International Conference on Globalization and Development (Glad), Session D2-Trade, FDI and Technology, Göttingen, Germany, July 2021 International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium (IATRC)-OECD Summer Symposium, Session V: Tariffs, Agricultural Subsidies, and the 2020 US Presidential Election, Virtual Meeting, June 2021. 2021 Canadian Agricultural Economics Society Annual Meeting, Selected paper session 5: International forces and domestic impacts, Virtual Meeting, June 2021. 20th Journées Louis-André Gérard-Varet (LAGV) International Conference in Public Economics, Session F1-International Trade and Finance, Marseille, France, June 2021. The Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Annual Conference, August 2021. The Royal Economic Society's (RES) Annual Conference, April 2021. The Southern Agricultural Economics Association (SAEA) Annual Meeting, February 2021.
Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), Oxford, the United Kingdom, March 2020 (canceled due to Covid-19).
The Royal Economic Society's (RES) Annual Conference, Belfast, Ireland, April 2020.
European Association of Agricultural Economists (the 190 EAAE-seminar), Montpellier, France, May 2019.
Agricultural Economics Society (AES), U of Warwick, Coventry, the United Kingdom, April 2019.
International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE), Vancouver, Canada, July 2018.
Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), Oxford, the United Kingdom, March 2018
Australasian Agricultural & Resource Economics Society (AARES), Adelaide, Australia, February 2018
U.S. CONFERENCES
The 2022 Midwest International Economic Development Conference, University of Minnesota, April 1-2, 2022
International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium, San Diego, CA, December 12, 2021
Agriculture Policy Conference, Agricultural Policy Research Group (APRG), Virtual, October 2021
Selected Job Market Paper Session, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA), International Section, Atlanta, GA, July 2019
Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev), Agriculture Section Los Angeles, CA, April 2019
Western Education and Research Activities (WERA-72), Fargo, ND, June 2019
Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association (NAREA), Philadelphia, PA, June 2018
Midwest International Economic Development Conference (MIEDC), Minneapolis, MN, April 2018
Invited Research Seminar, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, University of Connecticut, April 15, 2022
Research Seminar, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Moscow, ID, September 2021.
The Graduate School Seminar in the Department of Food and Resource Economics, Korea University, South Korea, July 2021.
Research Seminar, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Seoul National University, South Korea, November, 2020
Research Seminar, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Texas Tech University, TX, January 2020.
Research Seminar, Department of Agricultural Economics, Mississippi State University, Starkvile, MS, February 2020.
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