Biography

Fred Seunghyun Maeng completed his PhD in economics at the University of Cambridge in 2024. His primary research interests include international macroeconomics, particularly sovereign default, international lending, and financial fragility. Fred has conducted research on the currency denomination of sovereign debt in emerging economies, self-fulfilling debt crises, and international reserve accumulation. His work has been published in the Journal of the European Economic Association.

As a Max Weber Fellow, Fred plans to continue exploring his research in three areas: (i) the impact of self-fulfilling sovereign risk crises on international reserve accumulation in emerging economies, (ii) the influence of central bank independence on the currency denomination of external sovereign borrowing in emerging economies, and (iii) the interaction between monetary and fiscal policy in the presence of sovereign default risk. Fred is interested in the policy implications of reserve accumulation and dollar borrowing, which are common among many emerging economies. He also plans to collaborate with other researchers at the EUI to develop new ideas.

Fred has experience teaching both undergraduate and graduate-level macroeconomics, as well as graduate-level asset pricing. He is skilled in finding global solutions for models with multiple equilibria using clusters.

Mentor

• Giancarlo Corsetti