VCU’s Minchul Yum receives Korean Economy Research Prize
The VCU economist is honored by the Korean Economic Association for research on demographic and educational challenges in Korea.
By Megan Nash
Minchul Yum, Ph.D., has spent years studying how economic policies address societal changes. That research has now earned him one of the Korean Economic Association’s top honors.
Yum, an associate professor of economics at the VCU School of Business, has been named a recipient of the Korean Economy Research Prize, an annual distinction given to two published papers that expand the understanding of Korea’s economy.
A specialist in macroeconomics, Yum joined VCU Business in August 2024. His latest research, published in the American Economic Review and co-authored with Seongeun Kim (Sejong University) and Michèle Tertilt (University of Mannheim), examines how societal pressure to keep up in education significantly reduces birth rates. The study suggests that policies such as education taxes and child allowances could help increase fertility rates while curbing excessive education spending driven by comparison motives.
“Low birth rates, coupled with the growing costs and pressures of raising children, are becoming a global phenomenon and a key policy concern, including in the United States,” said Yum. “What’s happening in South Korea can provide valuable insights into how policies might address this major societal challenge.”
Before joining VCU, he held faculty positions at the University of Mannheim in Germany and the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. His research has appeared in Econometrica, the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics and other leading academic journals. In 2023, the Korea-America Economic Association named him a Young Scholar, recognizing his contributions to macroeconomic research.
His insights have also found a broader audience. Last October, The New York Times quoted him in a feature on Japan’s declining birth rates, where he recalled how, growing up in South Korea, having more than two children in public was once seen as a stigma.
At VCU, Yum continues his research while mentoring graduate and undergraduate students through the School of Business and Graduate School’s Underrepresented Minority Pipeline Initiative Program and serving on the School of Busines’s Ph.D. Programs Committee. His work, he says, is less about finding definitive answers than about understanding an economy in constant motion.
“There’s always another factor to consider, always another shift happening,” he said. “That’s why this work never really stops—and why economic tools are essential for understanding complex, ever-evolving societal challenges.”
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