Munseob Lee

Munseob Lee is an assistant professor of economics and director of the Korea-Pacific Program. His research areas are macroeconomics, growth and development, and the Korean economy. He is a member of Conference on Research in Income and Wealth (CRIW) and a research affiliate of IZA Institute of Labor Economics. Lee teaches courses including Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Macroeconomics of Development, and The Korean Economy.

He has been a short-term consultant at the World Bank, a visiting fellow at the Asian Development Bank, and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis as well as the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Prior to joining UC San Diego, Lee was a research intern at the International Monetary Fund and a sergeant in the Republic of Korea Army.

Lee's research and interviews have gained recognition from various renowned national and global news sources, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg, CNN, MarketWatch, Fast Company, Telegraph, and Nikkei. Additionally, his work has been featured in local San Diego news outlets such as ABC 10, NBC 7, Fox 5, CBS 8, KPBS, and The San Diego Union-Tribune.

He received the 2023 Sherman Family Korea Emerging Scholar Award from the Korea Society and the 2024 Young Scholar Award from the Korea-America Economic Association.

For more information, please visit Munseob Lee's personal site.

Education and CV

Ph.D., Economics, University of Chicago, 2017
B.A., Economics, Seoul National University, 2010
CV

GPS Spotlight

Publications

Does Turnover Inhibit Specialization? Evidence from a Skill Survey in Peru, accepted at American Economic Review: Insights, with Andrea Atencio-De-Leon and Claudia Macaluso.

Allocation of Female Talent and Cross-Country Productivity Differences, accepted at Economic Journal.

The US Structural Transformation and Regional Convergence: Racial Heterogeneity, accepted at Journal of Applied Econometrics, with Minki Kim.

The Plant-Level View of Korea's Growth Miracle and Slowdown, accepted at Canadian Journal of Economics, with Yongseok Shin.

The Life Cycle of Products: Evidence and Implications, Journal of Political Economy, Volume 132, Number 2, Feb. 2024, with David Argente and Sara Moreira.

Measuring the Cost of Living in Mexico and the U.S., American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Vol. 15, No. 3, July 2023, pp.43-63, with David Argente and Chang-Tai Hsieh.

Regional Redistribution through SBA Guaranteed Loan Programs, Journal of Corporate Finance, Volume 78, February 2023, Article 102344, with Churn Ken Lee.

Do Resource Windfalls Improve Standard of Living in sub-Saharan African Countries?, Applied Economics, Volume 55, No. 9, 2023, pp.944-962, with Cheikh Anta Gueye.

The Cost of Privacy: Welfare Effects of the Disclosure of COVID-19 Cases, Review of Economics and Statistics, Volume 104, Issue 1, Jan. 2022, pp.176-186, with David Argente and Chang-Tai Hsieh.

COVID-19, Commuting Flows, and Air Quality, Journal of Asian Economics, Volume 77, Dec. 2021, Article 101374, with Rachel Finerman.

Cost of Living Inequality during the Great Recession, Journal of the European Economic Association, Volume 19, Issue 2, April 2021, pp.913-952, with David Argente.

Innovation and Product Reallocation in the Great Recession, Journal of Monetary Economics, Volume 93, Jan. 2018, pp.1-20, with David Argente and Sara Moreira.

Book Chapters

High-Skill Immigration, Innovation, and Creative Destruction, In: “The Roles of Immigrants and Foreign Students in US Science, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship.” University of Chicago Press, Feb. 2020, pp.73-98, with Gaurav Khanna.

Federal Reserve Bank Policy Notes

Do Black Households Face Higher and More Volatile Inflation?, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Brief, No. 22-25, July 2022.

Cost of Living Inequality beyond the Great Recession, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Presentation Brief, April 2022, with David Argente.

Price Volatility Faced by Black and White Households, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Presentation Brief, April 2022, with Claudia Macaluso and Felipe Schwartzman.

Book Reviews

Shrimp to Whale: South Korea from the Forgotten War to K-Pop, Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 83, Issue 2, May 2024.