Areas of Expertise
As a financial economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Keyoung Lee studies the interplay of housing, urban economics, and consumer credit on local communities and the broader labor market. Since joining the Philadelphia Fed in 2020, his research has focused on a range of research topics, including real estate and mortgages as part of his work in the Risk Assessment, Data Analysis, and Research (RADAR) Group in the Supervision, Regulation, and Credit Department.
During the pandemic, he was instrumental in analyzing the effects of mortgage forbearance programs on mortgage market inequality. His analysis uncovered a drop in mortgage delinquency rates for overall racial and income differences during the COVID-19 crisis, especially in preventing borrowers from defaulting on their mortgages and suffering adverse credit outcomes. In 2021, Lee won the President's Award at the Philadelphia Fed for his mortgage market analysis, which was presented to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Lee has a Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a B.A. in economics and mathematics from Northwestern University. He was also awarded several fellowships during graduate school, including one from the National Science Foundation. Prior to graduate school, he was a senior associate economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.