Department of Economics

4-101 Hanson Hall

1925 Fourth Street South

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455

U.S.A.

(612) 625-6353

(612) 624-0209 FAX

Placement Director

  Fabrizio Perri

  (612) 625-7504   or

  (612) 204-5526

  fperri@umn.edu

Placement Coordinator

  Catherine Bach

  (612) 625-6859

  c-bach@umn.edu 

Curriculum Vitae

Fall 2011

Address

4-101 Hanson Hall

1925 Fourth Street South

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455

U.S.A.

Telephone Numbers

Cell: (612) 232-6859

E-mail: sewonhur@umn.edu

URL:  www.sewonhur.com 

Degree

Ph.D.

M.A.

M.A.

B.A.

Field

Economics

Economics

International Studies

Economics

Political Sciences

Institution

University of Minnesota (expected)

University of Minnesota

Yonsei University

Yonsei University

Year

2012

2011

2007

2003

Professor Timothy Kehoe

Professor Fabrizio Perri

Dr. Simran Sahi

Dr. Jonathan Heathcote

tkehoe@umn.edu 

(612) 625-1589  

fperri@umn.edu

(612) 625-7504

ssahi@umn.edu

(612) 625-6353

heathcote@minneapolisfed.org

(612) 204-6385

Department of Economics

University of Minnesota

4-101 Hanson Hall

1925 Fourth Street South

Minneapolis, MN 55455

Federal Reserve Bank of
Minneapolis
90 Hennepin Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55480

2011 - 2012

2011

2010

2007 - 2008

Hutcheson Lilly Dissertation Fellowship, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Travel Grant, National Science Foundation, Nobel Laureate Meeting in Economic Sciences, Lindau, Germany.

Distinguished Instructor Award, Department of Economics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Silverman Fellowship, Department of Economics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

2009 - 2011

2008

Instructor, Department of Economics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Instructor for Intermediate Macroeconomics and Principles of Macroeconomics.

Teaching Assistant, Department of Economics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Led recitation sections for Principles of Microeconomics and Principles of Macroeconomics.

2011 - Present

2010

2009

Visiting Scholar, Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Research Analyst, Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Research assistant for Professor Timothy Kehoe.

Research Assistant, Department of Economics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Research assistant for Professor Timothy Kehoe.

“The Lost Generation of the Great Recession,” November 2011.

“A Theory of Sudden Stops, Foreign Reserves, and Rollover Risk in Emerging Economies,” with Illenin Kondo, November 2011.

“Firms, Financing, and Barriers to Growth,” with Jose Asturias, Timothy J. Kehoe, and Kim J. Ruhl, November 2011.

“Growth Miracles, Export Sophistication, and Human Capital,” with Illenin Kondo, September 2010.

2012: CREI, University of Pittsburgh, National University of Singapore, Carleton University, Indiana University, Korea Development Institute, Bank of Korea

2011: Workshop on Dynamic Macroeconomics (Soutomaior, Spain), SED Meetings (Ghent, Belgium), Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, NYU Stern School of Business

2010: Economics Graduate Student Conference (Washington University in St. Louis)

“The Lost Generation of the Great Recession”

This paper analyzes the effects of the Great Recession on different generations. While older generations have suffered the largest decline in wealth due to the collapse in asset prices, younger generations have suffered the largest decline in labor income. Potentially, the young may benefit from the purchase of cheaper assets, especially if they have access to credit. To analyze the impact of these channels, I construct an overlapping generations model with borrowing constraints in which households choose a portfolio over housing as well as risk-free and risky financial assets. Shocks to labor efficiency and uncertainty regarding the return on risky assets generate a recession with a drop in asset prices and cross-sectional changes in consumption, investment, and wealth that are consistent with the recent recession. In particular, younger generations experience large declines in both nondurable consumption and housing investment, a fact that is supported by the data. Overall, the young suffer the largest welfare losses, equivalent to a 5 percent reduction in lifetime consumption.

“A Theory of Sudden Stops, Foreign Reserves, and Rollover Risk in Emerging Economies” with Illenin Kondo

Emerging economies, unlike advanced economies, have accumulated large foreign reserves holdings. We argue that this policy is an optimal response to an increase in foreign debt rollover risk. In our model, reserves play a crucial role in reducing debt rollover crises ("sudden stops"), akin to the role of bank reserves in preventing bank runs. An unexpected increase in rollover risk leads to a global rise in sudden stops, prompting emerging economies to update their priors about the risk they face. We show that a global increase in rollover risk explains the outburst of sudden stops in the late 1990s, the subsequent increase in foreign reserves holdings, and the salient absence of sudden stops ever since.

“Firms, Financing, and Barriers to Growth” with Jose Asturias, Timothy Kehoe, and Kim Ruhl

We construct a model in which aggregate growth is driven by the continual entry of new firms that face barriers to entry that are exacerbated by financial frictions. We show that economies with more severe financial frictions have lower levels of output and consumption along the balanced growth path compared to economies with lower levels of financial frictions, even though all economies grow at the same, constant, rate. Improvements in financial markets generate faster-than-trend growth as the economy transitions to the new balanced growth path. The model generates sharp predictions regarding the rate of firm creation and aggregate output levels, as well as aggregate growth rates; these predictions are borne out in the cross country data.