“It is my most cherished ambition (…) to increase the number of those with cool heads but warm hearts, who are willing to give some at least of their best powers to grappling with the social suffering around them, (…) to discover how far it is possible to open up to all the material means of a refined and noble life.” This is one of the illuminating lines of the great Alfred Marshall, a British economist and philosopher who is considered as one of the founding fathers of economics. This also serves as guidelines for Prof. Hyeok Jeong as he educates and polishes the minds of young policymakers at the KDI School.

Prof. Jeong’s teaching style and philosophy give us a glimpse of how he approaches his work as an economist and teacher, namely in the most logical and diagnostic way possible. He tries to rule out the “plausible nonsense” in his classroom, promotes the capacity of students in expressing their ideas, and trains them to reconcile intuition with hard evidence.

A summa cum laude Economics graduate from Seoul National University, Professor Jeong spent more than a decade in the US as a lecturer and professor of economics at the Vanderbilt University, University of Southern California and University of Chicago (his PhD alma mater) while consulting for the World Bank and working on various academic papers on economic growth and inequality. When asked who influenced him to major in Economics, Prof. Jeong mentioned his high school teacher who opened his mind to the world of political economy.

He currently has eight working papers: four papers under review by international journals and another four in progress. He is preoccupied with the following research interests: role of skills from work experience as an essential component of human capital in understanding the process of modernization and the wage dynamics in the labor market; the impact of financial deepening for productivity growth; the relationship between growth and inequality dynamics; analysis of trade dynamics in general equilibrium; and firm entry/exit and productivity dynamics among East Asian countries.

However, economics and teaching do not dominate Prof. Jeong’s life. In his spare time, he enjoys playing with his two children, a first- and a fifth-grader, spends time with his wife whom he met at college, and attends a choir practice at his church. When asked what he would have been if he were not a professor, Prof. Jeong reveals that he might have ended up as a flower shop owner… or a singer! This surprising admission makes a request for a song an absolute must in the next KDI School Happy Hour.

By Maria Charmaine GUEVARA (2012 MDP, Philippines)