NIC Energy and Tech Meetings/Global Trends 2030
CISAC Conference Room
FSI researchers examine the role of energy sources from regulatory, economic and societal angles. The Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD) investigates how the production and consumption of energy affect human welfare and environmental quality. Professors assess natural gas and coal markets, as well as the smart energy grid and how to create effective climate policy in an imperfect world. This includes how state-owned enterprises – like oil companies – affect energy markets around the world. Regulatory barriers are examined for understanding obstacles to lowering carbon in energy services. Realistic cap and trade policies in California are studied, as is the creation of a giant coal market in China.
CISAC Conference Room
This paper analyzes the causes, responses, and consequences of the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident (March 2011) by comparing these with Three Mile Island (March 1979) and Chernobyl (April 1986). We identify three generic modes of organizational coordination: modular, vertical, and horizontal. By relying on comparative institutional analysis, we compare the modes' performance characteristics in terms of short-term and long-term coordination, preparedness for shocks, and responsiveness to shocks. We derive general lessons, including the identification of three shortcomings of integrated Japanese electric utilities: (1) decision instability that can lead to system failure after a large shock, (2) poor incentives to innovate, and (3) the lack of defense-in-depth strategies for accidents. Our suggested policy response is to introduce an independent Nuclear Safety Commission, and an Independent System Operator to coordinate buyers and sellers on publicly owned transmission grids. Without an independent safety regulator, or a very well established “safety culture,” profit-maximizing behavior by an entrenched electricity monopoly will not necessarily lead to a social optimum with regard to nuclear power plant safety. All countries considering continued operation or expansion of their nuclear power industries must strive to establish independent, competent, and respected safety regulators, or prepare for nuclear power plant accidents.
The world has undergone major drastic changes in the last two decades driven by several major factors, eg, explosion of human population and connectivity. Such changes seem further accelerated in recent years and it seems that our future becomes more uncertain and unpredictable. The Fukushima Nuclear Accident awakened us and led to creation of Independent Investigation Commission by the National Diet of Japan; The Commission Report revealed some of the fundamental issues of Japan’s nuclear policy. Meanwhile, multi-stakeholders’ engagement has become critical in various social affairs and in policy making domains within and across national boundaries, and has contributed in significant ways to affect the processes of addressing and impacting global agenda, such as climate change, food and water, energy, urbanization, biodiversity, human capital with shifting the balance of economy and power. In my view, the principles of our society may be changing quite fast heading somewhat differently from our conventional norm. The science community can and should contribute to these issues in nurturing future leaders, but in what way?
Kiyoshi Kurokawa is a graduate of University of Tokyo School of Medicine, trained in internal medicine and nephrology, in US 1969-84; Professor of Med, Dept Med ofUCLA Sch Med (79-84), Chair, Univ Tokyo Faculty of Med (89-96), Dean of Tokai Univ School of Med (96-02, President of Science Council of Japan (03-07), Science Advisor to Prime Minister (07-09), Board member of A*STAR (06-00), Bibliotheca Alexandria (04-08), Khalifa University (08- ), Okinawa Institute of Science and Tech (06- ), Global Science and Innovation Advisory Board of the Prime Minister of Malaysia (11-); President of Intl Soc Nephrology (97-99), Inst of Medicine of US Academies (92). Recently, chaired Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission by the National Diet of Japan (Dec 11-July 12). AAAS Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award (2012), ‘100 Top Global Thinkers 2012” of Foreign Policy.
Philippines Conference Room
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.
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
Forecasting is a difficult profession. International economist David Hale and writer Lyric Hughes Hale do not claim they can foretell the future. But as veteran observers of the Asian economies, they can envision scenarios that are contrary to current conventional wisdom, and trends that deserve more attention than they are given in the media. What if China and Japan actually engage in armed conflict? Could East Asia experience its own version of the Arab Spring? What would be the consequences of another major earthquake in Japan? When the United States was the dominant power in the Pacific, security interests and economic interests were aligned in the region. Now that China has become the largest trading partner for many ASEAN countries, a new Great Divergence is emerging, with potentially destabilizing consequences. While our national attention has been dominated by the Middle East for a decade now, in the coming era of energy self-sufficiency in the United States, we must shift our focus to the Far East.
Philippines Conference Room