President’s Message
President’s Message
Dear KAFA Members, Friends, and Supporters:
I hope all KAFA members are still healthy and productive even under the unprecedented pandemic environment. I am happy to see that the spring is finally here and COVID vaccine is widely available for most of us. Let’s hope and pray the Coronavirus will be controlled and disappear soon and we can travel and see each other face to face in Denver.
I am deeply honored to serve as President of KAFA for the 2020-2021 Year. First, I would like to thank Professor Peter Chung for his outstanding service and leadership for KAFA. Professor Chung played a key role in making KAFA program stronger and in contacting numerous donors.
I welcome KAFA’s new and returning Executive Office members: President-Elect Professor Young Sang Kim, Vice President Professor Woojin Kim, Secretary-General Professor Jung Chul Park, Secretary General-Elect Professor Won Yong Kim, Secretary General KAFA Korea Professor Jong-Min Oh, Treasurer Professor Young Baek, Treasurer-Elect Professor Taek-Yul Kim, and Cyber Director Professor Kiseo Chung.
Due to COVID related pandemic, we did much of our academic business on-line and our activities were limited. During the fiscal year, we concentrated our effort to strengthen KAFA funding situation to support more future activities without external funding constraints. This year we established KAFA Development Fund committee and appointed Professor Jang-Chul Kim as a chair of this committee. This committee will manage initial funding of $70,000 and most of the funding will be invested in stock market. The money was raised from numerous sources: KAFA Korea funding transfer, KAFA accounts, Executive Committee and board members’ donation. I really appreciate KAFA Korea to transfer money to us and I am thankful for generous donation from executive Committee and board members. We are targeting $200,000 by Year 2025. To achieve the goal, we need active participation in the fundraising by KAFA members. Please help us to achieve the goal and make KAFA to have sustainable funding to support more academic activities and help Ph.D. students under financially difficult situation. To monitor the funding activities, we appointed Professor Moon Hyun Song as an auditor of KAFA Development Funding.
KAFA successfully offered two KAFA-FMA sessions at the virtual FMA meetings in last October. In the Korea Panel Session (moderated by Professor Peter Chung), Drs. Youngjun Choi, Kwangyong Park, Christopher Paik from the Bank of Korea presented their papers. In the Asia Panel Session (moderated by me), Drs. Peng (Univ of New South Wales), Sangche Lee (Korea Institute of Finance), and Le Zhang (Australian National University). Both sessions were very informative for us to better understand Korean and Asian financial markets. I would like to thank all participants in the sessions, as well as Dr. Woon Shin (BOK Economic Research Institute) and President Sangho Sohn (Korea Institute of Finance) for their generous support.
KAFA members also virtually participated in CAFM2020. Professors DuckKi Cho (Peking Univ.) Hugh H. Kim (Univ. of South Carolina), Choonsik Lee (Univ. of Rhode Island), Joonki Noh (Case Western Reserve Univ.) presented excellent papers in the CAFM conference and President-Elect, Professor Young Sang Kim met with chairs of other Korean finance associations to maintain good relationship with Korean finance scholars.
During the last year’s virtual FMA-KAFA annual business meeting, KAFA presented several awards to recognize KAFA members’ outstanding scholarly achievements. These awards include Financial News-KAFA Eminent Scholar Award, D.K. Kim Distinguished Scholar Award, Shinhan Bank & KAFA Young Scholar Award, Shinhan Bank & KAFA Best Award, Dr. Bong-Soo Lee Memorial Scholarship, Financial News-KAFA Doctoral Student Dissertation Award, Shinhan Bank & KAFA Scholarship for Ph.D. students. On behalf of KAFA, I congratulate all award recipients and greatly appreciate Financial News, Shinhan Bank, and D.K. Kim Foundation. I sincerely appreciate Professor Hoje Jo (Financial News-KAFA Eminent Scholar Awardee)’s generous donation to KAFA.
KAFA has recently announced calls for papers for the two conferences to be organized with Korean partners: KAFA-Allied Korean Financial Association and KAFA-KIF joint symposium this May and June. You will find details in this Newsletter and I sincerely ask more KAFA members to participate in these two joint meeting to enhance our relationship with Korean finance community.
Although all of us have difficulties due to COVID pandemic, I believe we will overcome these difficulties by following the wonderful tradition of KAFA and become a stronger association that cares each other. KAFA will continue to play an important role in promoting and accomplishing our professional goals together. I hope you all continue to join in this endeavor and participate in KAFA Development Fund 2025 (The checks can be sent to our Treasurer Professor Young Baek).
Sincerely,
Kiyoung Chang
2020-2021 KAFA President
University of South Florida