 | Thisbiography of a living personneeds additionalcitations forverification. Please help by addingreliable sources.Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced orpoorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentiallylibelous. Find sources: "Hyun-Song Shin" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(April 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Hyun Song Shin | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1959 (age 66–67) Daegu, South Korea |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Oxford University |
| Doctoral advisor | James Mirrlees |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Economic theory,finance |
| School or tradition | Neoclassical economics |
| Institutions | Princeton University |
| Notable ideas | global games |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 신현송 |
| RR | Sin Hyeonsong |
| MR | Sin Hyŏnsong |
| Website | |
Hyun Song Shin (Korean: 신현송; born 1959) is a South Koreaneconomic theorist and financial economist who focuses onglobal games. He has been the Economic Adviser and Head of Research of theBank for International Settlements (BIS) since May 1, 2014.[1]
Previously, he was the Hughes-Rogers Professor of Economics atPrinceton University since 2006, though he took a leave in December 2009 to advise South Korean PresidentLee Myung-bak on theinternational economy as well as help set the agenda for theG-20 Seoul summit in November 2010.[1]
Shin obtained aB.A. inphilosophy, politics and economics atOxford University (Magdalen College) in 1985, anMPhil in economics from Oxford'sNuffield College in 1987, and aDPhil in economics from Oxford's Nuffield College in 1988. Shin became a research fellow in 1988 and tutorial fellow in 1990 at Magdalen College, Oxford.
In 1994 he moved to theUniversity of Southampton, where he became a professor of economics. He moved back toOxford in 1996 as a university lecturer in economics and faculty fellow in economics at Nuffield College. In 2000 he became a professor of finance at theLondon School of Economics. In 2006 he moved to Princeton University.
In addition to his academic positions, Shin served as an advisor toBank of England (2000–2005) and is a member of the Financial Advisory Roundtable at theFederal Reserve Bank of New York and a panel member of the U.S. Monetary Policy Forum since 2007. He is a research fellow of theCentre for Economic Policy Research since 1998. Shin was the chairman of the editorial board of theReview of Economic Studies from 1999 to 2003. He collaborated withIsabel Schnabel, comparing theBankruptcy of Lehman Brothers with the bankruptcy ofLeendert Pieter de Neufville in 1763.[2][3]
Shin was elected a Fellow of theEconometric Society and of theEuropean Economic Association in 2004, and a Fellow of theBritish Academy in 2005. He was awarded theR. K. Cho Economics Prize in 2009.[4]
In December 2009, Shin was named chief advisor to President Lee Myung-bak on international finance. He played a major role in formulating South Korea'smacroprudential policy and helped develop the agenda for theG-20 during Korea's presidency, which culminated in the2010 G-20 Seoul summit on November 11–12, 2010.[1]
In September 2013 theBasel, Switzerland–basedBank for International Settlements (BIS) announced that Shin would begin a five-year term as its Economic Adviser and Head of Research starting in May 2014. In that role he would also serve as a member of the BIS Executive Committee.[5][6]
In 2023 Shin was elected to theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.[7]
Global coordination games belong to a subfield ofgame theory that gained momentum in 1998 when he published an article withStephen Morris. Shin and Morris considered a stylizedcurrency crisesmodel, in which traders observe the relevant fundamentals with small noise, and show that this leads to the selection of a unique equilibrium. This result is in stark contrast with models ofcomplete information, which feature multiple equilibria.
In 2011 he won the secondFinancial Times annual essay contest onbanking regulation sponsored by theInternational Centre for Financial Regulation. He wrote about how theG-20 major economies could increase financial stability withmacroprudential regulations that "leans against thecredit cycle" using examples from the UK, South Korea, and the United States. Specifically, he "advocated a global tax on non-core banking liabilities as the best way to deflatebubbles".[8]
Shin argues that "financial firms systematically take more risk asasset prices rise", which means that the financial system's vulnerability "cannot be measured by price indicators likecredit spreads orvolatility. Instead, analysts should focus on quantities like the amount of assets on intermediary balance sheets and the liquidity andmaturity mismatches between those assets and the liabilities used to fund them".[9]
He is known for this 2010 bookRisk and Liquidity which opens with a quote from an anonymous risk manager who says: "The value added of goodrisk management is that you can take more risks". He then says thatfinancial risk is endogenous, due to the thinking expressed in this quote and makes an analogy withLondon'sMillennium Bridge in which the instability was also endogenous. When the bridge lurched to the side, everyone adjusted their footingat exactly the same time, to avoid falling over, and this caused a synchronized oscillation.
He is credited with coining the termendogenous risk, with his co-authorJon Danielsson which as opposed toexogenous risk, captures shocks to the financial system stemming from how financial system participants interact with each other, giving rise to internal mechanisms, such asfeedback-loops and forcedfire sales.
Martin Wolf credits him with coming up with the explanation for the huge global overreaction (called the "taper tantrum") to United States Federal Reserve chairBen Bernanke's hint that he might taperquantitative easing in May 2013. Shin presented this theory at a conference on Asia at theFederal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in December 2013. Shin suggested that it was caused by the growth of demand for the private-sector bonds ofemerging economies, and the resulting excess global liquidity.[10]
