He is best known as co-founder, with Simon Johnson, in September 2008, of the economics blog "The Baseline Scenario", a commentary on developments in the global economy, law, and public policy.
[2] Kwak has worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company and later was Director of Product Marketing at Ariba, where he led product strategy and marketing for the Platform Solutions division and the Ariba Network.
After receiving his JD from Yale in 2011, he joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut School of Law in August 2011.
He co-wrote, with Simon Johnson, the 2010 book 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown (ISBN 978-0307379054) and the 2012 book White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, and Why It Matters to You (ISBN 978-0307906960).
In 2023, Kwak co-authored, with Stephen Bright the book The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts (ISBN 978-1620970256) [3]