Seung Hoon Lee
Assistant Professor
- School of Economics
Overview
Seung Hoon Lee received his PhD in Economics from Stanford University. His research is in the field of international economics with particular interest in trade policy and trade finance. In order to clearly interpret various economic mechanisms, he builds a model, derives its theoretical implications, and tests these implications with data.
- Ph.D., Stanford University
- B.S., University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
- International Economics
- International Trade
- International Trade Policy
- Urban Economics
- ECON-4421: Urban & Regional Econ
- ECON-6330: Urban & Regional Econ
- ECON-7004: Math for Economists
- ECON-7122: International Econ II
Selected Publications
Journal Articles
- Political Influence and Trade Uncertainty: Evidence from Sanction Threats and Impositions
In: Economics Bulletin [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2018
Abstract: This paper examines how uncertainty arising from sanction threats impacts international trade. By separately examining the threat stages of sanctions to the actual imposition of sanctions, we distinguish the impact of political uncertainty on trade from that of actual trade disruption. We find that US sanction threats significantly reduce US bilateral trade with target countries. The effect is larger when the target is a nondemocratic state and when sanctions are politically motivated.
- Risk Sharing and Export Performance with Firm Heterogeneity
Date: 2018
We investigate how market uncertainty affects the export performance of a firm through financial frictions. We first extend Melitz’s (2003) heterogeneous firm trade model by incorporating demand shocks, linking the demand uncertainties to the financing costs of firms. In this extension, the default probability is endogenously determined by a firm’s productivity and demand uncertainty. Hence, firms with higher productivity or lower market uncertainty are offered lower interest rates and thus show better export performance. As an application, we also show that a risk-sharing mechanism, that pools default risk for a certain group of firms, lowers the default risk. This mechanism allows banks to charge lower interest rates to the member firms and therefore ultimately improves their export performance in both extensive and intensive margins. We find a real-world example of such a mechanism from business groups in Korea. Using Korean firm-level data, we show that the more diversified the business group, the greater the likelihood that its member firms export and the bigger their export revenues. We also show that our results are robust to alternative explanations for Korean business groups’ export competitiveness