CERF End of Term Lunch Inspirational Talks

Naoki Yago, Former CERF Scholar

'Reflections on my PhD Journey'

Antonia Tsang, Current CERF Scholar

'Heterogeneous Monetary Policy Pass-Through to Consumer Credit Along the Income Distribution'

I am second-year PhD student at the Faculty of Economics and a recipient of the CERF PhD scholarship. My research focusses on the role of household debt in determining macroeconomic outcomes. My first-year paper investigated heterogeneity in the effects of monetary policy on consumer credit costs across the income distribution in Brazil, thereby providing empirical support for a potential transmission mechanism from monetary policy to inequality through household debt.  

Ting Yu, CERF Scholar 2020 - 2023 and Current Research Associate at CEAM

'PhD Journey: Challenges and Triumphs'

Embarking on a PhD journey is akin to setting sail on an uncharted sea—full of excitement, uncertainty, and discovery. In this talk, I’ll share my experience from the initial thrill of research to the hurdles of balancing academic rigor with personal well-being.

Henning Zschietzschmann

A PhD Student from the Faculty of Economics supervised by Dr. Kamiar Mohaddes

'Weathering the Storm: Physical Climate Risk and Corporate Bonds'

In his first-year PhD chapter, Lennart is investigating recent sovereign debt trajectories in emerging markets. Over the past decade, a lot of these countries have concerningly taken on larger and larger debt portfolios that have become increasingly painful to default on. With the latest rise in interest rates, this has caught many of the poorest countries in the world between a rock and a hard place: They can either try to keep servicing their fast-growing interest repayments, or incur large economic penalties when attempting to restructure their debt. Lennart's research aims to better explain what makes countries end up at such a disadvantageous point of high debt and high economic costs of default and how to prevent a repeat of this spiral in the future. In his work, Lennart proposes that short-sighted governments may figuratively "tie themselves to the mast" by deliberately issuing debt contracts that increase the economic cost of sovereign default, as this commits the government to repay.

While this reduces the probability of a liquidity crisis and allows governments to sustain higher debt levels in normal times, it also makes the sovereign very vulnerable to large unanticipated economic shocks, as was the case with COMID-19. Global frameworks that further regulate different kinds of sovereign borrowing could help dampen this spiral in the future.