Toward a More Open Japan? TPP, RCEP, and Abenomics
Prime Minister Abe's economic policy, called Abenomics, places policies to open up Japan as a key component. The government argues that reducing the barriers for international trade and capital flows will revitalize the Japanese economy and restore the growth in Japan. At the core of the opening up policy are efforts to establish free trade agreements (FTAs) with major trading partners. Japan joined the negotiation for TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), which includes the U.S., Japan's second largest trading partner, in July this year. Japan has also started negotiation for RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), which includes China, Japan's largest trading partner. Will these efforts really succeed in making the Japanese economy more open? Do they lead to the recovery of Japan from two decades of stagnation? Experts from both sides of the Pacific discuss these issues.
Participants:
Glen S.
Philippines Conference Room
Hideichi Okada
Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall E317
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Hideichi Okada joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) from September, 2013 until March, 2014 as Sasakawa Peace Fellow with the Japan Studies Program (JSP).
His research interests encompass energy policies and trade policies in the context of possible cooperation between Japan and the U.S. During his time at Shorenstein APARC, Okada will be working to launch New Dialogue Program for future cooperation on various areas between Japan and the U.S., and other Asia Pacific countries.
Okada served as Vice Minister for International Affairs, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) from 2010 to 2012, where he promoted international trade and investment, and expanded industrial cooperation with various countries. He also served as Director General of Trade Policy Bureau (2008-2010) and Director General of Commerce and Information Policy Bureau of METI (2007-2008). He worked for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi as his executive assistant, where he dealt with policies on economy, industry, energy, science and technology, and environment, and with public relations (2001-2006). He was a professor at GRIPS (2006-2007) and a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School and IR/PS, University of California, San Diego in 2007.
Okada was born in Tokyo in 1951. He received LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School (1981) and graduated from the University of Tokyo with a LL.B. (1976). Currently, he is Senior Adviser, NTT Data Institute of Management and Consulting.
Phillip Lipscy
Phillip Y. Lipscy was the Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University until August 2019. His fields of research include international and comparative political economy, international security, and the politics of East Asia, particularly Japan.
Lipscy’s book from Cambridge University Press, Renegotiating the World Order: Institutional Change in International Relations, examines how countries seek greater international influence by reforming or creating international organizations. His research addresses a wide range of substantive topics such as international cooperation, the politics of energy, the politics of financial crises, the use of secrecy in international policy making, and the effect of domestic politics on trade. He has also published extensively on Japanese politics and foreign policy.
Lipscy obtained his PhD in political science at Harvard University. He received his MA in international policy studies and BA in economics and political science at Stanford University. Lipscy has been affiliated with the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo, the Institute for Global and International Studies at George Washington University, the RAND Corporation, and the Institute for International Policy Studies.
For additional information such as C.V., publications, and working papers, please visit Phillip Lipscy's homepage.
Takeo Hoshi
Takeo Hoshi was Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Professor of Finance (by courtesy) at the Graduate School of Business, and Director of the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), all at Stanford University. He served in these roles until August 2019.
Before he joined Stanford in 2012, he was Pacific Economic Cooperation Professor in International Economic Relations at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where he conducted research and taught since 1988.
Hoshi is also Visiting Scholar at Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and at the Tokyo Center for Economic Research (TCER), and Senior Fellow at the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER). His main research interest includes corporate finance, banking, monetary policy and the Japanese economy.
He received 2015 Japanese Bankers Academic Research Promotion Foundation Award, 2011 Reischauer International Education Award of Japan Society of San Diego and Tijuana, 2006 Enjoji Jiro Memorial Prize of Nihon Keizai Shimbun-sha, and 2005 Japan Economic Association-Nakahara Prize. His book titled Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan: The Road to the Future (MIT Press, 2001) co-authored with Anil Kashyap (Booth School of Business, University of Chicago) received the Nikkei Award for the Best Economics Books in 2002. Other publications include “Will the U.S. and Europe Avoid a Lost Decade? Lessons from Japan’s Post Crisis Experience” (Joint with Anil K Kashyap), IMF Economic Review, 2015, “Japan’s Financial Regulatory Responses to the Global Financial Crisis” (Joint with Kimie Harada, Masami Imai, Satoshi Koibuchi, and Ayako Yasuda), Journal of Financial Economic Policy, 2015, “Defying Gravity: Can Japanese sovereign debt continue to increase without a crisis?” (Joint with Takatoshi Ito) Economic Policy, 2014, “Will the U.S. Bank Recapitalization Succeed? Eight Lessons from Japan” (with Anil Kashyap), Journal of Financial Economics, 2010, and “Zombie Lending and Depressed Restructuring in Japan” (Joint with Ricardo Caballero and Anil Kashyap), American Economic Review, December 2008.
Hoshi received his B.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Tokyo in 1983, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988.