Meihui Li

Before joining SOAS, University of London, Meihui obtained an MPA from New York University with a concentration in Public Finance. During her time at NYU, she received the Jo Ivey Boufford Innovation Award for her research on Zambia’s sovereign debt restructuring and fiscal condition. 

Meihui previously worked at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, within the Financing for Sustainable Development Office (FSDO). Her works focus on the Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFF) Climate Finance project and the 2024 Financing for Sustainable Development Report. Her responsibilities included quantitative analysis of World Bank and International Monetary Fund datasets, alongside research on topics related to climate finance and sovereign debt sustainability. 

Meihui holds an MSc in Finance with distinction from SOAS. Her dissertation focused on the impact of geopolitical shocks on risk contagion in European sovereign bond markets. Using empirical techniques and event analysis, she investigated how the Russia–Ukraine war reshaped patterns of risk contagion across countries with different credit ratings, macroeconomic structures, and fiscal conditions. She also holds an LLB in Diplomacy from Beijing Foreign Studies University, where she studied international relations, political economy and public policy. 

With her interdisciplinary background in financial risk management and international relations, Meihui is particularly interested in research topics related to fiscal policy, policy uncertainty, and asset pricing. For her doctoral research, Meihui focuses on how fiscal policy and policy uncertainty influence asset pricing. Her study uses event analysis and empirical modelling to examine the effects of political and fiscal factors, including government borrowing and taxation policies, on cross-sectional asset returns. It further aims to identify the transmission channels through which specific political events, including political elections, shape asset pricing at the firm level. Her research also considers both domestic market reactions and potential global spillover effects, with the goal of improving understanding of how financial markets respond to the changing political and fiscal dynamics.

• Fiscal policy
• Policy uncertainty
• Asset pricing
• Political and geopolitical risk
• Sovereign debt and risk contagion