Jinhyuk Yoo, Bank of Korea

"I learned to read between the lines of models"

Jinhyuk Yoo joined the Ph.D. program at Goethe University in 2010. From 2002 to 2010 he had been working as an economist at the Bank of Korea, South Korea’s central bank, where he also returned to after earning his Ph.D. in March 2016. He graduated from Seoul National University with a B.A. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and a M.A. in Economics. Jinhyuk formed part of Volker Wieland’s Macro Model Base team, collaborating with him as a teaching assistant on macroeconomic model comparison.

What are your main tasks at the Bank of Korea?

I work in the Model-Based Analysis Team in the Research Department. My primary task at the Bank is to improve an existing Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model for the Korean economy such that it can be used in earnest for forecasting and policy analysis. I also worked as a chief secretary for the Bank of Korea – Korea University BK21 Conference, which was held on October 28, 2016 in Seoul.

How would you describe your job to other people?

I’d like to say that my job is to develop a structural macroeconomic model for the Korean economy and to provide the platform for further discussion among other staff economists and policy makers at the Bank.

What is the main focus of your research?

Regarding the research related to tasks at the Bank, I focus on how to integrate economic forecasting with monetary policy decision in the framework of inflation targeting in a small open economy. As for my own research, first and foremost, I’m revising two chapters in my dissertation and try to publish them in academic journals, though it’s very hard to find time for my own research at work. One is my single-authored paper, “Capital Injection to Banks versus Debt Relief to Households”, and the other is a paper jointly written with Bettina Brueggemann, “Aggregate and Distributional Effects of Increasing Taxes on Top Income Earners”. Next, I’m much interested in analyzing the macroeconomic effects of the accumulation of household debt.

How is your job related to your work at the IMFS?

I worked on the Model Base team at the IMFS for three years. I contributed to the development of the Model Base 2.0 and was involved in a research project to develop a new platform for real-time estimation and forecasting with macroeconomic models. Those experiences gave me an opportunity to read between the lines in many monetary DSGE models, which greatly helps me to develop a DSGE model for the Korean economy.

How did the interdisciplinary work at the IMFS influence your research?

Many interdisciplinary seminars at the IMFS helped me be familiar with the legal terminology used by lawyers. Also, I was taught the introduction to the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union in the first year of the Ph.D. program. It helps me understand better the institutional features of the Eurosystem.