Shin Hyun-song, a world-renowned authority on financial crisis research and head of the Monetary and Economic Department at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), was named on the 22nd as the nominee for the new Bank of Korea (BOK) governor. With Shin's nomination, there is an outlook that the BOK will more actively consider financial conditions such as real estate and the won-dollar exchange rate when setting the benchmark interest rate going forward.
Shin, born in 1959 in Daegu, North Gyeongsang, graduated from Emanuel School in the United Kingdom, returned to Korea, and completed three years of active-duty military service. He then finished his undergraduate studies in philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Oxford and received a doctorate in economics from the same university.
Shin served as a professor at the University of Oxford until 2000, then built his reputation in international finance as a professor at the London School of Economics (LSE) and Princeton University in the United States. He later served as an adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in 2007 and as a member of the Financial Advisory Roundtable at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and in 2010 gained on-the-ground policy experience as a senior adviser for international economics at the presidential office.
Since 2014, he has served as head of research (chief economist) and economic adviser at the BIS and is currently in charge of the Monetary and Economic Department, with retirement slated for the end of August. Shin is the first Asian to hold the BIS chief economist post. The BIS is an international organization known as the "central bank of central banks."
Shin is a world-leading authority in financial crisis theory and financial stability research. In a paper released in 1998 while he was a lecturer at the University of Oxford, co-authored with Stephen Morris, then a professor at Yale University in the United States, he introduced the "global games" theory, which applies game theory to the occurrence and evolution of currency crises, making a major contribution to macroeconomics.
In academia, expectations are that he will place greater emphasis on financial conditions after taking office. Shin Gwan-ho, president of the Korea Finance Association (professor of economics at Korea University), who has conducted several joint studies with Shin, said, "Shin is a world-class economist who offered insight into analyzing the causes of financial crises," adding, "He is likely to put more emphasis on the role of monetary policy in real estate issues and exchange rate stability."
He is likely to take a hard line on won-denominated stablecoins. Shin has generally taken a conservative stance, assessing that "stablecoins find it difficult to maintain 1-to-1 value in times of crisis." In particular, he has noted that the spread of stablecoins poses a significant risk of negatively affecting price stability and financial order in various countries.
Lee Kyu-yeon, senior presidential secretary for public relations and communication, said of Shin, "Shin is a world-renowned authority in macroeconomics who has worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York," adding, "Amid heightened uncertainty in the global economy due to the Middle East crisis, he is the right person to simultaneously achieve the monetary policy goals of price stability and growth of the national economy."