Japan Center News

The Japan Table at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on March 26 hosted an informal panel discussion on the Japanese economy, focusing on macroeconomic and monetary policy in Japan, and lessons for the United States.

CJEB Associate Director David Weinstein was quoted in a Feb. 27 Bloomberg article, titled "Obama Must Defeat Spite on Bailouts to Beat Recession (Update1)".

A look at America's iconic Singer sewing machine company sheds light on some of the lessons earlier American capitalists learned when venturing abroad. On March 3, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the Center on Japanese Economy and Business cosponsored a lecture titled "Yankee Capitalist Go Home: The Singer Sewing Machine Company in 1930s Japan." The guest speaker Andrew D. Gordon is a Professor of History at Harvard University, where he is also director of the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies. Hugh Patrick, director of the Center on Japanese Economy and Business, Columbia Business School, moderated the event.

On March 2, 2009, the Center on Japanese Economy and Business (CJEB) and the Japan Business Association of Columbia Business School hosted a zadankai (informal discussion) titled "Current Economic Conditions in Japan and Asia." Naoyuki Yoshino, professor of economics at Keio University in Tokyo and a member of Japan's Ministry of Finance, led the conversation; Professor Hugh Patrick, director of CJEB, served as the moderator.

Gerry Curtis, Burgess Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and CJEB core faculty member, writes an op-ed article in the Financial Times titled "Japan's politicians lose their way at a bad time."

Hugh Patrick, Director for the Center on Japanese Economy and Business, was quoted in a Feb. 18th CNNMoney.com article, "Dawn of the dead banks."

An impressive group of speakers gathered at Columbia Business School last Thursday, February 5 for a symposium titled "Japan's Solar and Wind Ambitions: How Promising is the U.S. Market?" The event, organized by the Center on Japanese Economy and Business with the support of the Mitsui USA Foundation, marked the 10th anniversary of the Mitsui USA Foundation's sponsored symposia at Columbia Business School and was the first-ever to include a remote audience of Columbia Business School's alumni association in Tokyo via live webcast. Columbia Business School's Energy Club, Green Business Club, and Japan Business Association also cosponsored the event.

In the midst of a global economic crisis, it seems more relevant than ever to study factors that contribute to capital market strength and long-term economic growth in emerging economies around the world. On Tuesday, January 27, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute cosponsored a brown bag lecture with the Center on Japanese Economy and Business and the Harriman Institute titled "A New Approach to Law and Economic Development, with Reference to East Asia." The discussion focused on the findings presented in the recently released book, Law and Capitalism, which was coauthored by Columbia Law School Professors Curtis Milhaupt and Katharina Pistor.

The Japan Society, Nomura Holding America Inc., The Women's Bond Club of New York, and the Center on Japanese Economy and Business (CJEB) of Columbia Business School cosponsored the symposium, "America Has Voted: Impact of New U.S. President on Asian Markets" on January 29, 2009. Sitting on the panel were three distinguished speakers: Alicia Ogawa, Director of the Program on Alternative Investments at CJEB; David Resler, Managing Director and Chief Economist at Nomura Securities International, Inc.; and Jeffrey Young, Chief Economist at Platinum Grove Asset Management. Leslie Norton, Foreign Editor, Asia at Barron's moderated the discussion.

David Weinstein, Associate Director for the Center on Japanese Economy and Business, was quoted in a February 5th New York Times article, "Japan's Big-Works Stimulus Is Lesson."