# Ka Lok Wong (Steve)

> Ka Lok Wong (Steve Wong) is a macroeconomist at the United Nations Economic
> Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa, working on growth, fiscal, and
> debt issues across the continent. His research covers sovereign debt,
> African domestic debt markets, emerging-market sovereign bond issuance,
> exchange-rate pass-through to fiscal revenues, and international finance.
> He is a co-creator of the African Debt Database. PhD in International
> Economics, Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID), summa cum laude.

Key facts:

- Full name: Ka Lok Wong; goes by Steve (Steve Wong / Steve K.L. Wong).
- Role: Macroeconomist (Associate Economic Affairs Officer), Macroeconomics,
  Finance and Governance Division, United Nations Economic Commission for
  Africa (UNECA), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Views on this site are his own, not
  his employer's.
- Expertise: sovereign debt; African domestic debt markets; debt transparency
  and debt governance; emerging-market bond issuance (volume, maturity,
  currency choice); fiscal policy; exchange-rate pass-through to tax revenues;
  renminbi invoicing; macroeconomic data engineering (Python, Stata, APIs).
- Education: PhD and MA in International Economics, Geneva Graduate Institute
  (IHEID); MSc in Economic History, London School of Economics; BA, City
  University of Hong Kong.
- Open to conference, panel, and seminar invitations on these topics
  (contact by email).
- Contact: ka.wong@un.org · LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevekwong/ ·
  GitHub https://github.com/steveklwong
- Scholar profiles: Google Scholar
  https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xSzB9K4AAAAJ · RePEc/IDEAS
  https://ideas.repec.org/f/pwo351.html · ORCID
  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7590-0703 · CEPR
  https://cepr.org/about/people/ka-lok-wong
- Full-text version of this site for LLMs: https://stevekwong.com/llms-full.txt

## Research

- [Research overview](https://stevekwong.com/research): all papers with
  abstracts, statuses, and links.
- [Determinants of Sovereign Bond Issuance in Emerging Markets](https://cepr.org/publications/dp21251):
  first-authored, with Mark Manger and Ugo Panizza. CEPR Discussion Paper
  21251 (2025); forthcoming, Oxford Review of Economic Policy. Uses 75,000+
  sovereign issuance events and 20,000 securities from 20 emerging markets to
  study how governments choose issuance volume, maturity, and currency.
- [Africa's Domestic Debt Boom: Evidence from the African Debt Database](https://cepr.org/publications/dp20747):
  with Manger, Mihalyi, Panizza, Rescia, and Trebesch. CEPR Discussion Paper
  20747 (2025). Introduces the African Debt Database — 50,000+ government
  loans and securities from 54 African countries, 2000–2024 (~USD 6.3 trn).
  Project site: https://africandebtdatabase.com
- Monetary Shocks and Fiscal Consequences: Exchange Rate Pass-Through to Tax
  Revenues in Emerging Markets (single-authored, under revision).
- China and the Currency of Invoicing: Market Size, Geography, and the Rise
  of the Renminbi (single-authored, under revision).

## Policy contributions

- Economic Report on Africa 2026 (UNECA, Apr 2026).
- Economic Report on Africa 2025 (UNECA, Mar 2025).
- Policy paper: The Impacts of the Middle East Conflict on African Economies
  (AfDB–AUC–UNECA–UNDP Task Force, Apr 2026).

## Media

- The Economist, "Africa's other debt crisis" (Nov 2025): coverage of
  Africa's domestic debt landscape drawing in part on the African Debt
  Database.

## Data and code

- [Data & code hub](https://stevekwong.com/data): reproducible Python/Stata
  guides for macroeconomic data APIs (World Bank WDI, IMF WEO, UN Comtrade,
  BIS FX, UNCTAD, African Debt Database maturing bonds), with notebooks.
- [Comtrade API guide](https://stevekwong.com/comtrade)
- [Jupyter enterprise setup](https://stevekwong.com/jupyter-setup)
- [Local projection charts in Excel/Stata](https://stevekwong.com/lp-excel-guide)
- [Country ball plots](https://stevekwong.com/country-plot)

## CV

- [Short CV](https://stevekwong.com/cv): education, employment, publications.
- [Full CV (PDF)](https://stevekwong.com/files/CV_Wong_20Nov2025.pdf)