About

Professor Kimberly Kay Hoang is a Professor of Sociology and the College at the University of Chicago. Her research examines deal making in frontier and emerging economies. She is the author of two books: 'Spiderweb Capitalism: How Global Elites Exploit Frontier Markets,' which provides a behind-the-scenes look at how offshore shell corporations are used to conceal wealth and facilitate illicit financial activities, and 'Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work,' which explores the construction of masculinities, financial deal-making, and transnational political-economic identities through ethnography in Vietnam's informal economy. Her work has received numerous awards, including five distinguished book awards for 'Spiderweb Capitalism' and seven for 'Dealing in Desire.' She was also honored with the 2020 Lewis A Coser Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Sociological Theory for her theoretical contributions. Her research interests include economic sociology, law, global sociology, gender, qualitative research methods, and theory. Her publications have been recognized with over 26 prizes, and her articles have appeared in prominent journals such as the American Sociological Review, Social Problems, and Gender & Society.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Law
• Social Science
• Philosophy
• Market economy
• Finance
• Business
• Epistemology
• Economics

Selected publications

• The Architecture of Global Capital: Elites, States, and the New Geography of Wealth

  Annual Review of Sociology · 2026-04-15

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This article reviews the sociological and interdisciplinary literature on the global architecture of elite wealth, emphasizing structural transformations in the global political economy following the 2008 financial crisis. First, we review the literature on wealth stratification and its limits for studying the current structure of elite wealth. Second, we highlight the dimensions central to this new landscape and examine the reorganization of global production and capital flows, including the outsourcing of manufacturing and the rise of new economic centers in East and Southeast Asia, which challenge nation-bounded analyses of wealth. Third, we show how both democratic and authoritarian states strategically partner with private capital, blurring political distinctions and enabling elite consolidation. Fourth, we trace the expansion of offshore finance that fosters the rise of a transnational elite supported by professional intermediaries. We conclude by calling for new theoretical and methodological tools to study elite power, hidden capital flows, and their implications for inequality and governance.

  PublisherDOI

• Brooke Harrington. Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism HarringtonBrooke. Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism. W.W. Norton, 2024. 176 pp. $22, hardcover.

  Administrative Science Quarterly · 2025-03-16

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Decoding the patterns of spiderweb capitalism

  Open Access Government · 2024-04-09

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Decoding the patterns of spiderweb capitalism Dr Kimberly Kay Hoang, the Director of Global Studies at the University of Chicago’s Department of Sociology, reflects on ‘spiderweb capitalism’ and her efforts to unravel opaque financial networks worldwide. I am a sociologist interested in deal-making in emerging and frontier markets. I use ethnographic and interview methods to examine highly risky, corrupt markets with no clear rule of law. Introducing the concept of ‘spiderweb capitalism,’ I build on the work of network scholars by exploring the substantive material that flows between two nodes in a network and by uncovering how totally disparate networks are connected. This is especially important in new frontiers where relationships with state officials are crucial to getting insider access to the most lucrative deals and securing profitable exit opportunities.

  PublisherDOI

• <i>Changing Women in a Changing Society</i> at 50: A Symposium

  American Journal of Sociology · 2023-11-01 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Spiderweb Capitalism: The Secret Financial Webs Built by the Ultra-Wealthy

  2023-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The anonymous leak of the Panama Papers in 2016 revealed how the exceptionally wealthy (such as politicians, celebrities and business leaders) hide their money and exploit secretive offshore tax regimes. Dr Kimberly Kay Hoang is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, and after six years of research, hundreds of interviews and travelling 350,000 miles, she published Spiderweb Capitalism: How Global Elites Exploit Frontier Markets. She uncovered the mechanisms behind the movement of money into and out of Southeast Asia, and how that money travels all over the world.

  PublisherDOI

• Who Gets to Be a Theorist? The Oppression of Marginal Theories

  2023-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Who gets to be a theorist? What kinds of theoretical work get marginalised in academic research? And how does this oppression play out in the peer-review process? Dr Kimberly Kay Hoang is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. She has explored how difficult it is to get your sociology research published if you are not using research deemed to be legitimate by reviewers. She brings awareness to these issues and argues for change amongst scholars so that new forms of knowledge are not missed, especially regarding feminist, minority and racial theories.

  PublisherDOI

• Theorizing from the Margins: A Tribute to Lewis and Rose Laub Coser

  Sociological Theory · 2022 · 13 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Sociology
  • Social Science

  This article is an adaptation of the sixteenth Lewis A. Coser lecture, given virtually in 2021 for the American Sociological Association Meetings. In this article, I pay tribute to Lewis and Rose Laub Coser by engaging with their past work, which inspired a theoretical provocation about what it means to theorize from the margins. I specifically address the questions of who gets to be a theorist and what kinds of theoretical work get marginalized. I outline the process of epistemic oppression involved in trying to publish marginal ideas in mainstream journals. I argue that the relationship between mainstream sociology and what I refer to as “marginal” requires a relational perspective that (1) situates both marginalized scholars and their scholarship in the broader discipline of sociology and (2) examines the epistemic oppression of their theories regardless of their sometimes-powerful institutional positioning in highly ranked departments or as leaders within various professional associations.

  PublisherDOI

• Spiderweb Capitalism

  2022-07-21 · 4 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter examines the concept of “spiderweb capitalism,” a framework that illustrates how global elites exploit offshore financial structures and frontier markets. Drawing from extensive fieldwork and ethnographic data, it reveals how ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) collaborate with a network of financial professionals—including lawyers, accountants, and fixers—to construct complex, opaque webs of financial transactions. These webs facilitate tax avoidance, corruption, and the legal obfuscation of assets across multiple sovereignties. Focusing on emerging markets like Vietnam and Myanmar, the chapter argues that playing in the gray—manipulating the space between legality and illegality—is central to global capital flows. It challenges methodological nationalist approaches by emphasizing the interdependence of global and local actors in maintaining these financial networks. Ultimately, it underscores the systemic inequalities perpetuated by this form of capitalism and its implications for global governance and economic justice.

  PublisherDOI

• In Search of the Next El Dorado

  2022-08-24

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Four. In Search of the Next El Dorado: Mining for Capital in a Frontier Market with Colonial Legacies

  2022-10-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Benita Roth

  University of Virginia

  49 shared

• Neda Maghbouleh

  University of British Columbia

  49 shared

• Scott Schieman

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  49 shared

• Cynthia J. Cranford

  University of Toronto

  49 shared

• Seoyoung Park

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  49 shared

• Jenni- Fer Carlson

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  49 shared

• Ching Lee

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  49 shared

• Kelly Hannah‐Moffat

  49 shared

Education

• PhD, Sociology

  University of California Berkeley

  2011

Awards & honors

• 2020 Lewis A Coser Award from the American Sociological Asso…