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Japan's startup ecosystem has matured dramatically over the past decade, with greater societal legitimacy, business success, and government support than most observers would have expected 20 years ago. Despite the challenging times ahead with the global pandemic, Japan's startup ecosystem is still poised to inject flexibility and innovation in a system often criticized as too rigid. This panel brings together scholars who have studied and participated in the ecosystem, and one of the key government officials pushing policy supporting the startup ecosystem. 

PANELISTS

Yoshiaki Ishii, Director of Science, Technology and Innovation, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan

Since getting his start at the government's Small and Middle Enterprise Agency, Dr. Yoshiaki Ishii has shaped his career almost exclusively around supporting young companies and enhancing innovation. Now, he is the director of the Cabinet Office and responsible for determining how to execute the government's mission of supporting deep tech start-ups and creating an innovation ecosystem. Previously, he served as director of the New Business Policy Office, Economic and Industrial Policy Bureau, METI. He has demonstrated expertise in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME), and Venture Business Policy, Industrial Organisation, and Innovation Policy. Dr. Ishii earned his PhD from Waseda University, in 2012, after completing an MBA at Aoyama Gakuin, in 2000.

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To celebrate its May release, contributors Karen Eggleston, Barry Naughton, and Andrew Walder will join editors Thomas Fingar and Jean Oi for a panel discussion of their volume Fateful Decisions: Choices That Will Shape China’s Future (Stanford University Press).  China has enjoyed an extraordinary run of rapid growth and development over the last 40 years.  Yet, as Fingar and Oi point out, China’s future is hardly set in stone.  Sustained economic growth, social welfare and stability will depend upon tough policy decisions confronting Beijing’s leaders today in what is a watershed moment.  Casting doubt on Beijing’s aversion to major reforms and its return to certain Mao-era policy tools, Oi and Fingar argue that China’s challenges are not only complex, but high-stakes – challenges that have become even more daunting in the aftermath of COVID-19.  As China battles the difficulties caused by an aging population, the loss of comparative economic advantage, a politically entrenched elite, and a population with rising expectations, today’s policy decisions will weigh heavily on its future. Topics explored in the volume include China's healthcare challenges in a slowing economy, its global ambitions and track record, economic aims and realities, the country’s mounting governance pressures, and more. 

 

Fateful Decisions is available for purchase here.

 

Fore more information on Fateful Decisions, check out these articles:

Karen Eggleston Examines China’s Looming Demographic Crisis, in Fateful Decisions

Now It Gets Much Harder: Thomas Fingar and Jean Oi Discuss China’s Challenges in The Washington Quarterly

China’s Challenges: Now It Gets Much Harder

 

Karen Eggleston is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University, director of the Stanford Asia Health Policy Program, and deputy director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at FSI. She is also a fellow with the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and a faculty research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Eggleston earned her PhD in public policy from Harvard University, studied in China for two years, and was a Fulbright scholar in South Korea. Her research focuses on comparative health systems and health reform in Asia, especially China; government and market roles in the health sector; supply-side incentives; healthcare productivity; and economic aspects of demographic change.

 

Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow in the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. From May 2005 through December 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Previous positions include assistant secretary of state for Intelligence and Research (2000-2001, 2004–2005), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001–2003), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994–2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific, and chief of the China Division. Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (AB in government and history) and Stanford University (MA and PhD, both in political science). His most recent books are Uneasy Partnerships: China’s Engagement with Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform (editor) (Stanford University Press, 2017); The New Great Game: China’s Relations with South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform (editor) (Stanford University Press, 2016); and Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security (Stanford University Press, 2011).

 

Barry Naughton is the So Kwanlok Professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California–San Diego. Naughton’s work on the Chinese economy focuses on market transition; industry and technology; foreign trade; and political economy. His first book, Growing Out of the Plan, won the Ohira Prize in 1996, and a new edition of his popular survey and textbook, The Chinese Economy: Adaptation and Growth, appeared in 2018. Naughton did his dissertation research in China in 1982 and received his PhD in economics from Yale University.

 

Jean C. Oi is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the Department of Political Science and a senior fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. She directs the China Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and is the Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University. Oi has published extensively on China’s reforms. Recent books include Zouping Revisited: Adaptive Governance in a Chinese County, coedited with Steven Goldstein (Stanford University Press, 2018), and Challenges in the Process of China’s Urbanization, coedited with Karen Eggleston and Yiming Wang (2017). Current research is on fiscal reform and local government debt, continuing SOE reforms, and the Belt and Road Initiative.

 

Andrew G. Walder is the Denise O’Leary and Kent Thiry Professor of Sociology in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and a senior fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. A political sociologist, Walder has long specialized in the study of contemporary Chinese society and political economy. After receiving his PhD at the University of Michigan, he taught at Columbia, Harvard, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. At Stanford he has served as chair of the Department of Sociology, director of the Asia-Pacific Research Center, and director of the Division of International, Comparative, and Area Studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences. His most recent books are Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement (2009), China under Mao: A Revolution Derailed (2015), and Agents of Disorder: Inside China’s Cultural Revolution (2019).

Moon Jae-in administration increased South Korea’s minimum wage by nearly 30 percent in 2018 and 2019 under its political slogan of "income-led growth." The idea was that the higher minimum wage would boost low-wage earners’ earnings, thus the income inequality would be reduced while promoting economic growth with increased labor income and expenditure of low-wage workers and their households. This idea was, however, heavily criticized by those who argued that the minimum wage could not be a tool for economic growth and there could be a negative effect on employment.

Lee will discuss empirical findings from his research on the Korean minimum wage including the effect of the recent wage hikes. Using employer-employee matched data and longitudinal data on the universe of establishments, he estimated the effect of the minimum wage on net job growth and tried to decompose the effect into job creation and destruction by existing establishments as well as by establishment entry and exit. He found a significant negative effect of the minimum wage on employment growth; and also that ignoring the minimum wage’s effect on the self-employed could underestimate the adverse effect on total employment. To explain the mechanism, he focuses on the Korean labor market's unique feature—a high share of the self-employed in the workforce and their financial marginality. His findings demonstrate that the minimum wage’s effect and its channels should differ across countries depending on labor market institutions and structure.

Jungmin Lee is a professor of economics at Seoul National University in Korea, and also a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor in Germany and at the Center for Research & Analysis of Migration at University College London in UK. Previously, he was an assistant professor at University of Arkansas and Florida International University, and an associate professor at Sogang University in Korea. His current research focuses on Korean labor market and education policies, interactions between health and labor market outcomes, and North Korean refugees. He has been a member of editorial board of many economics journals in Korea. He was the chief editor for the Korean Journal of Labor Economics and he is currently a Co-Editor for the Korean Economic Review; and was a member of the committee on youth employment of the Korea Tripartite Commission. He has published more than 50 papers in academic journals, mostly about the Korean economy. He received a bachelor’s degree in international economics from Seoul National University and PhD in economics from the University of Texas at Austin.