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Economic Survey of Japan Presentation: Randall Jones Japan/Korea Desk, OECD Economics Department Moderator: Mindy Kotler Japan Information Access Project

Event Description:

Randall Jones, Head of the Japan/Korea Desk in the OECD Economics Department, presents the findings of the OECD Economic Survey: Japan, 2008.  The Survey provides a comprehensive view of the world’s second largest economy as it considers the recently-signed Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA).  

While Japan has emerged from an extended period of economic stagnation -- the so-called "lost decade" -- the Economic Survey points out a number of challenges, including a serious fiscal situation, low productivity in many sectors of its economy and rapid aging in the context of a shrinking population.

In his presentation, Dr. Jones will touch on a number of issues, including:

• How can Japan boost its potential growth rate from its current level of around 1.5%, the lowest in the OECD area?
• How can Japan boost address its serious fiscal problem and stabilize its public debt ratio (the largest in the OECD area at 180% of GDP) without tax increases that would limit economic growth?
• How can Japan address the shrinking working-age population, which is now falling almost 1% a year?

Biographies:

Randall Jones is currently Head of the Japan/Korea Desk of the OECD Economics Department. During his 14 years at the OECD, he has helped write six Economic Surveys of Japan and eight Economic Surveys of Korea, in addition to working on several European countries.   He has published extensively while at the OECD, including works on economic and financial restructuring in Asia.  Prior to joining the OECD, he worked as a staff economist at the US Council of Economic Advisers, as Senior Economist at the Japan Economic Institute and at the US State Department.  Mr. Jones holds a PhD from the University of Michigan.

Edward J. Lincoln is director of the Center for Japan-U.S. Business and Economic Studies and clinical professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business. Professor Lincoln’s research interests include contemporary structure and change in the Japanese economy, East Asian economic integration, and U.S. economic policy toward Japan and East Asia.  His new book on the underappreciated importance of economic issues in international relations and American foreign policy, Winners Without Losers: Why Americans Should Care More About Global Economic Issues was published in the fall of 2007.  He is the author of eight other books and monographs, including East Asian Economic Regionalism (The Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, 2004), Arthritic Japan: The Slow Pace of Economic Reform (Brookings, 2001). Before joining NYU, Professor Lincoln was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and earlier a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.  In the mid-1990s, he served as Special Economic Advisor to Ambassador Walter Mondale at the American Embassy in Tokyo. Professor Lincoln received his Bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, his M.A. in both economics and East Asian Studies at Yale University, and his Ph.D. in economics also at Yale University.