PHD THESIS
Title: Essays in International Finance and Macroeconomics
PhD Supervisor: Cédric Tille
Expected completion date: 2026
The first paper studies the currency choice in international trade, specifically the export invoicing in relation to trade with China and the product-specific commodity market activities. No significant growth in non-dominant currency invoicing is found, yet a correlation between Euro invoicing and Chinese commodity market activities is established. The second paper examines the choices in currency for sovereign bond issuance under the scope of the SNIS project. It introduces an extensive sovereign bond database and evaluates how different debt structures are chosen and the impact of legal clauses on debt resolution. The third paper investigates the potential natural hedging mechanism provided by Dominant Currency Financing and Dominant Currency Pricing at a country-currency level.
PROFILE
Ka Lok (Steve) Wong is a PhD Candidate in International Economics, with research interest on currency choice in international trade and finance. Currently, he is involved in the SNIS Project at the Centre for Finance and Development, IHEID, researching sovereign bonds in emerging markets. His daily tasks cover the endless debugging and some occasional cool graphs. Steve’s previous professional experience ranges from serving as a research assistant at varies institutions, to consulting for the International Labour Organization in Bangkok.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
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Currency risk
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Sovereign bonds
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International trade
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Emerging market economies
ACADEMIC WORK EXPERIENCE
(2022- present) Principal member in SNIS Project: [“Sovereign Debt in the Aftermath of the Pandemic: Improving Data to Prevent Debt Crises”] - More info. Under Prof. Ugo Panizza (Principal Coordinator) supervision
(2022) Research Assistant to Prof. Ugo Panizza on currency composition of EM sovereign debt in CEPR working paper [“Yet it Endures: The Persistence of Original Sin”] - More info
(2021-2022) Research Assistant to Prof. Philippe Bacchetta (Lausanne) on foreign currency corporate bonds [“The Rise in Foreign Currency Bonds: The Role of US Monetary Policy and Capital Controls”] (JIE Vol. 140, 2023) - More info
(2021) Research Assistant to Prof. Richard Baldwin and Prof. Jonathan Dingel (Chicago) on telemigration and development [“Telemigration and development: On the offshorability of teleworkable jobs”] - More info
OTHER WORK EXPERIENCES
(2019-2020, 2022) Consultant, ILO
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