2 0 2 3

SPECIALEDITION

94

Interview with the New Chairman RIETI

Toward a
World-Class Think Tank
Special Discussion
Launch of the RIETI EBPM Center
Meet Our Fellows
URATA Shujiro
ChairmanWhat is RIETI Highlight?

2023 Special Edition

CONTENTS

TopicsSpecial Column

RIETI’s public relations magazine RIETI Highlight is published in Japanese on a quarterly basis, featuring
RIETI’s most recent activities with the objective of disseminating our research outcomes to a wider
audience. This RIETI Highlight Special Edition is written in English and published annually as an overview
of RIETI’s undertakings for our international readers. We hope this Special Edition will be helpful not only in
spreading information on our activities and research findings but also in deepening international readers’
understanding of our mission as a leading Japanese policy think tank.

94

P1

News

P2

Toward a World-Class Think Tank

P4

Special Discussion
Launch of the RIETI EBPM Center

P9

Kyoto University - RIETI Symposium
A Fusion of Humanities & Sciences Research on the COVID-19 Pandemic:
Prospects for with-COVID-19 society

P12

Global Intelligence Series
Research Results of Global Intelligence Series

P14

Cornerstone of RIETI’s Industrial Policy Research

P16Interview Summary
East Asian and European Firms: Comrades or competitors
How Did Japan Cope with COVID-19? Two years of documenting consumption
behavior with big data

P19

Comments on Current Research

P22

Reserch Digest
Economic Outcomes and Regional Disparity of High-Speed Railways

P26

ColumnGender Stereotypes of PoliticiansSocial Pressure in Football Matches: An event study of ‘remote matches’ in Japan

P30

Research Programs
RIETI’s Fifth Medium-Term Plan
Introduction of the Nine Research Programs

P36

International Institutions that Collaborated with RIETI in 2022

P38

Visitors to RIETI

P40

Other Major Events 2022

P43

List of Events in 2022

P45

List of Fellows

Meet our Fellows

Research Projects
and Their Results

Feature Interview

Activities• All titles and affiliations are as of the day of the event.
• Events and interviews are held online unless otherwise noted.
• Views expressed in this issue are solely those of the individual authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of RIETI.

The paper, “Two-dimensional constrained chaos and industrial revolution
cycles,” jointly authored by Makoto Yano, former Chairman of RIETI, and Yuichi
Furukawa, former Faculty Fellow of RIETI, has been published in the online
edition of the multidisciplinary scientific journal Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (PNAS). It is an open access website, and the paper canbe downloaded free of charge from the link below. A printed version will be
published in the near future.
Since the 18th century, the modern economy has gone through cycles of rapid
technological innovation and serious stagnation, each lasting almost 100 years.
To read the paper:This study describes this phenomenon with a new term, “industrial revolution
cycle,” and clarifies its mechanisms using the interrelationship between market quality and technological scarcity.
This paper indicates that “large-scale innovations such as industrial revolutions reside in high-quality markets.”
Since the end of 1979, the United States and the United Kingdom, then under the strong leadership of President Reagan andPrime Minister Thatcher, respectively, have decisively implemented market reforms and promoted market upgrading. History
has shown that this laid the foundation for the Third Industrial Revolution. To overcome Japan’s prolonged stagnation that beganaround 1990, it is essential to promote innovation in every corner of society. This study suggests that we should promote market
upgrading in order to lay the foundation for such innovation.
The idea of an “industrial revolution cycle” was proposed by System Reform in the “Age of Quality” (Yano 2005, Iwanami
Shoten) as part of research of the Global COE program in collaboration with the Graduate School of Economics and Graduate
School of Business and Commerce, Keio University and Kyoto Institute of Economic Research. This study models and explains
the core of that concept.

News

The joint paper by Makoto Yano, former Chairman of RIETI, and Yuichi
Furukawa, former Faculty Fellow of RIETI, published in Proceedingsof the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)RIETI Senior Fellow Willem Thorbecke’s book was published in March
2023
RIETI Senior Fellow Willem Thorbecke wrote the book entitled “The East Asian Electronics Sector: The
Roles of Exchange Rates, Technology Transfer, and Global Value Chains,” which was published by Cambridge
University Press in March 2023. This book was written based on the findings of the research project “EastAsian Production Networks, Trade, Exchange Rates, and Global Imbalances.”
The lion’s share of smartphones, computers, televisions, semiconductor devices, and other electronics goods
is made in East Asia. Final electronics goods are assembled in China, and sophisticated parts and components(P&C) such as semiconductor chips, image sensors, and ceramic filters in upstream Asian economies such as
Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. How did Asia become the center of electronics manufacturing? How did learning take placethat allowed Asian workers to produce cutting-edge products? Are there lessons for countries like the US that seek to reshore
manufacturing of semiconductors, flat-panel displays, and related products? This Element addresses these issues.”

about
The Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) is a policy think tank established in 2001.
Our mission is to conduct theoretical and empirical research, to maximize synergies with those engaged inpolicy making, and to make policy proposals based on evidence derived from such research activities. RIETI
has developed an excellent reputation both in Japan and abroad for its work in these areas.

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

1From the Study of Economic Development to a Theoretical
Pillar of FTAs

Feature Interview

TOWARD A
WORLD-CLASSTHINK TANKURATA Shujiro
Chairman, RIETIIn January 2023, Professor Emeritus Shujiro Urata of
Waseda University was appointed as the new chairmanof RIETI. Chairman Urata specializes in international
economics and economic development theory, andhas conducted research on how international tradeand international investment have contributed to thedevelopment of national economies, including analysis
of economic development in East Asia and other regions,as well as how the overseas expansion of Japanesecompanies has affected corporate productivity.
In this interview, we asked Chairman Urata about
his past research, his contribution to Japan’s free
trade agreement (FTA) policy, the outlook for JapanAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) relations,and his aspirations for the future direction of RIETI.
Interviewer

SABURI Masataka
Director of PR Strategy, RIETI (Special Advisor to the Minister, METI)

2

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

Saburi: First, please tell us about your past research.
Urata: The focus of my research is in the field of economic
development and international economics. There are various factorsthat contribute to the economic development of nations, and among
them, I have been studying how international trade and international
investment have contributed to the economic development of eachcountry.
Economic development is accompanied by changes inindustrial structure. When I was a researcher at the World Bank
(1981-1986), I conducted empirical analyses at the country andindustry level on the changes in industrial structure as countries’
economic development shifted from agriculture to more productive
manufacturing and then to services.
In the 1990s, micro data at the company and the factory level
became available, allowing us to look at economic activity in evengreater detail. After RIETI was founded in 2001 and I became a
Faculty Fellow, I analyzed how the overseas expansion of Japanesecompanies has affected their productivity growth.
Saburi: The transformation of industrial structure has been a major
mission since the days when the Ministry of Economy, Tradeand Industry (METI) was the Ministry of International Trade andIndustry (MITI), and even today METI has an Industrial Structure
Division. It is very reassuring to have an expert in industrial
structure theory as a chairman of RIETI.
In 1993, the World Bank published The East Asian Miracle:
Economic Growth and Public Policy. Were you involved in thisreport as well? As a person in charge of Official Development
Assistance (ODA) at that time, I was very encouraged by thereport’s high evaluation of Japan’s aid to developing countries,
which had been criticized as “tide-aid. ”
Urata: There was a famous economist named Hollis Chenery, who
was considered a Nobel Prize candidate. His famous paper was onelasticities among factors of production and referred to as constantelasticity of substitution (CES) production functions, and his coauthors, Kenneth Arrow and Robert Solow, won the Nobel Prize.
He was the vice president for development policy at the WorldBank and he invited me to join the Bank.
The project leader of The East Asian Miracle was John Page, andI was in the same section of the World Bank with him. At that time,
there was an “East Asian miracle debate” at the World Bank, andthere were two views: one was that economic growth was achieved
because of government support, and the other was that without
government intervention, the private sector’s dynamism would
have led to more growth. Certainly Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan
are prime examples where the government contributed to economic
growth, but in other countries, the quality of the bureaucracy

FEATURE INTERVIEW
Saburi: I heard that you created the theoretical backbone of Japan’s
FTAs.
Urata: I have always conducted my research with a strong interestin policy. As a trend of global trade policy, the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was established after World War II,
under which trade was liberalized on a world-wide scale and theeconomy developed. However, trade liberalization under GATT
began to slow down, and FTAs, which liberalize trade between
specific countries, began to flourish around 1990.
In this context, the first country with which Japan concluded an
FTA was Singapore. The Japan-Singapore Economic Partnership
Agreement (JSEPA) was signed and entered into force in 2002,
while the interest of many policy makers and researchers shiftedfrom trade liberalization at the global level to trade liberalization ona bilateral or multi-country basis. My first project at RIETI was also
a study on FTAs.
Saburi: After the experience of negotiating FTAs, Japan is now
considered the “standard bearer of free trade.”
Urata: Former President Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-PacificPartnership (TPP) gave Japan an opportunity, and Japan should becommended for seizing the opportunity and playing an importantrole in maintaining free trade.

ASEAN-Japan Relations and Contribution of ERIA

Saburi: You have also been conducting research at the Economic
Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA, Headquarteredin Jakarta). What do you think will happen to Japan’s relationshipwith Asia and the Asian economy in the future?
Urata: This year marks the 50th anniversary of friendly cooperative
relations between Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN). Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and METI
prepare to celebrate the anniversary.
ASEAN is an organization created in 1967 by the five countries
of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand topromote peace and political stability among these Southeast Asian
nations, which had often been in conflict. Economic cooperation
began after political stability was achieved among these countries,
and Japan was the first non-ASEAN country to approach itenthusiastically. Japan provided the ASEAN countries with ODA

for infrastructure development and human resource development,
and private companies actively advanced into the region by taking
good advantage of this assistance.
Looking at Japan’s direct investment, the 10 ASEAN member
countries have received about twice as much investment from Japan
as from China, and ASEAN is the most important region in terms ofJapanese companies’ expansion into developing countries. ASEAN
also occupies a very large position for Japan in terms of trade (15%after China), and ASEAN recognizes that its relationship with Japan
is very useful for ASEAN’s economic development. In this sense, it
can be said that the relationship is a win-win situation.
On the other hand, China is geographically closer to ASEAN
than Japan, and some countries are connected by land, so China
and ASEAN are very closely linked by rail and road, so despite thiswin-win situation, China is the main trading partner for ASEAN
countries, and not Japan.
Saburi: Japan and ASEAN are important partners in terms of
economic security, but in the past, it has sometimes been said that
“Japan was sometimes seen as having a condescending attitude
toward ASEAN countries.” Will Japan need to make major changes
in its relationship with ASEAN in the future?
Urata: For ASEAN in the past, foreign companies were fromJapan, the U.S. and Europe, but now companies from China, South
Korea, Taiwan, and many other countries are active in ASEAN.
Competition in the ASEAN market has become that much tougher,
and the image of having a condescending attitude should definitely
be avoided. There are many ASEAN companies from which
Japanese companies can learn valuable lessons.
ERIA, an international organization established on Japan’s
initiative in 2008, is an important Japanese contribution to theregion. ERIA’s mission is to make an intellectual contribution to
the economic development of East Asia, and I believe that ERIA
is fulfilling this role effectively and faithfully, as it has a good
relationship with the ASEAN Secretariat.

Feature Interview

was lower or there was a lot of corruption, so I don’t think thegovernment contributed much.
On the other hand, the effects of Japanese aid, and especiallyaid related to infrastructure development, which were focused onin The East Asian Miracle, can be explained by economics, andthere is no dispute that this was very important for the economic
development and economic growth of developing countries.

Future aspirations

Saburi: What are your ambitions for the future?
Urata: I have participated in RIETI as a faculty fellow and havebeen impressed by its excellent intellectual network, and I think it iswonderful that RIETI is working aggressively on new themes suchas the fusion of humanities and sciences and evidence-based policy
making (EBPM). I believe it is my mission to inherit the path of
my predecessors and to play an ever more important role in solving
world issues.
I am also very interested in internationalization, and I believe that
RIETI is a world-class organization and can aim to enter the top 10
in the ranking of international think tanks.

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

3

R

I

E

T

I

T OP I C SSpec ial Di scus s i on

Launch of
the RIETI EBPM Center

OHASHI Hiroshi

KAWAGUCHI Daiji

WATANABE Tetsuya

Program Director and Faculty Fellow,

Program Director and Faculty Fellow,

Vice President and Chief EBPM Officer

RIETI / Vice President, Professor,

RIETI / Professor, Graduate School/ Advisor to the Minister, METI / Visiting

Graduate School of Public Policy, The

of Economics, University of Tokyo /Professor, Graduate School of Public

University of Tokyo / Professor, Faculty

Graduate School of Public Policy

Policy, The University of Tokyo

of Economics, The University of Tokyo

TopicsIn this three-way discussion, Vice President Tetsuya Watanabe, who has been appointed to head the RIETIEBPM Center, talked with Professor Daiji Kawaguchi of The University of Tokyo, Program Director of the “Policy
Assessment” program, and Professor Hiroshi Ohashi of The University of Tokyo, EBPM Center Advisor, about
the significance of the establishment of the EBPM Center inaugurated by RIETI in April 2022 and their hopes
for the future.

History of EBPM
Watanabe: RIETI inaugurated the RIETI EBPM Center in April
2022. In collaboration with domestic and overseas researchersand policymakers, the center engages in activities such as (1)retrospective policy evaluation based on quantitative analyses;(2) ex-ante assessment of large-scale projects in policy fields suchas digital and decarbonization, implemented via public-private
partnership; and (3) program logic model that reflects responsible
program management. While accumulating experience withevidence-based policy making (EBPM), the center aims to be acore research institute that helps develop EBPM that strengthens
the functions of policy recommendations to the government,
including the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI),
on industrial policies.
We launched EBPM to increase confidence and trust in public
administration through policies that are not (simply) decided
based on policymakers’ intuition or because things have been
done that way until now, but are determined based on data and inconsiderations of cost-effectiveness.
EBPM was begun by the Blair government in the UK and the
Obama administration in the U.S., and is used across a wide range

4*Job titles are as of the time of the trilogy

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

of public policy fields such as education policy, industry policy,
countermeasures against crime and illegal drugs, and measures
to address poverty. In Japan, it has been adopted by METI, theCabinet Office and other government ministries and agencies
since around 2017. Professor Kawaguchi, you headed the Center
for Research and Education in Program Evaluation (CREPE)
until March 2022, and you have guided EBPM at RIETI and therelevant government ministries and agencies. Let me begin byasking your opinion on the development and challenges of EBPM
in Japan until now.
Kawaguchi: Various EBPM initiatives have been undertaken at
CREPE and the relevant government ministries and agencies, buthere I would like to limit the discussion to RIETI’s initiatives.
There are several mainstays among REITI’s EBPM projects.
One of these is the project led by RIETI Senior Fellow Yoichi
Sekizawa, in which a team of researchers at RIETI mainly engages
in the assessment of METI policies. The full-scale implementationof EBPM across Japan began in 2017, and this RIETI team has
engaged in pioneering research right on the front lines of EBPM in
Japan.
The project led by RIETI Faculty Fellow Fumio Ohtake(Specially Appointed Professor, Osaka University) has also
promoted wide-ranging research into policy assessment. It isS p ec i al Di scuss ion

Watanabe: Thank you. Professor Ohashi, you have been
appointed to chair the EBPM Center’s Advisory Board, withyou and Professors Yasutora Watanabe and Sagiri Kitao (all of
The University of Tokyo) as Advisors. I would like to hear yourthoughts, too, on the assessment and challenges of EBPM in Japan
until now.
Ohashi: The year 2022 has been a memorable year for policy
evaluation. Mandatory policy assessment by governments wasintroduced in 2002, based on the Government Policy Evaluations
Act. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the introduction ofpolicy assessment.
Article 1 “Purpose” of the Government Policy Evaluations
Act sets forth the reasons for undertaking policy assessment: “topromote the objective and rigorous implementation of policy
evaluations and to reflect the results of these evaluations in theplanning and development of policy.” In other words, the purposeof policy assessment is not the evaluation itself; rather, it is aimed
at policy making. I believe that this was the spirit in which the law
was written.
Today, 20 years on, however, there is some doubt regardingwhether policy assessment is actually connected with policy
formulation, or whether it has just become evaluation for thesake of evaluation. On the front line of policy making, policy
assessment has sometimes been perceived as nothing more than
the work of documenting policies after the fact, and it seems
that, in some cases, there was really no connection between theassessment and formulation of policies.
EBPM is the reverse of statistical reform. Statistical reform wasalso implemented when Professor Hiroshi Yoshikawa (RIETI
Faculty Fellow) was a member of the Council on Economic andFiscal Policy (under the Koizumi government). At the time, theabbreviation “EBPM” wasn’t used yet, but it was referred to as“evidence-based policy making.” To put it in terms of statistics
supply and demand, supply (the sound preparation of statistics)
was emphasized over demand. By contrast, EBPM emphasizes
the demand side (policy making bodies). When EBPM started
about five years ago, I think the concept was to run “statisticaldevelopment” and “EBPM” in tandem. This approach was alreadyin existence 20 years ago, when policy assessment was first
introduced, and I think that we effectively returned to that idea.
In the past, EBPM had been ridiculed as “episode-based—rather than evidence-based—policy making,” or even as “policybased evidence-making (PBEM).” Thanks to the untiring effortsof Professor Kawaguchi and RIETI, however, I believe that theperception of the importance of evidence has penetrated quite
extensively within the government.

The importance of agile policy making
Ohashi: Policy needs have also changed substantially over the past
20 years. In terms of the popular PDCA approach (plan-do-checkact), policies can be improved by evaluating them and reflecting
improvements at the P (planning) stage. Policy assessment andpolicy making are two sides of the same coin. The vital point is toproperly establish issues at the P stage. The only way of knowing
what methods are appropriate to solve these issues is to put theminto practice. If no data exists, then we have to collect it as we goalong, through PBEM (policy-based evidence-making). We thenevaluate this data and change to a better method when the next P
stage comes around. It’s also crucial to have a worldview in which
we continue to repeat the PDCA cycle.
With the increasing pace of social change, even amid rising
uncertainty, we are seeing the rapid emergence of a succession ofissues such as digital transformation (DX), green transformation(GX) and economic security. Annual PDCA cycles have become
too slow to keep up with this change. At the same time, some newpolicies require a long time—more than a year—to evaluate.
Policies used to be evaluated according to the criteria of“transparency” and “fairness,” but it has become very difficult
to ensure the appropriateness of policy making using these two
measures. Of course, P (planning) is crucial, but maybe we need tocome up with a new measure for policy assessment that meets thedemands of this new era, based on a consideration of the nature of
P in the context of dynamic social changes and the kind of PDCA
suitable for large-scale, long-term investment under uncertain
conditions. I think this idea was behind the establishment of the
EBPM Center.
In an uncertain world, there can be no doubt about the

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

Topicsalso carrying out research aimed at introducing EBPM into
administrative processes. This project is engaged in highly reliable
research such as randomized controlled trials (RCT) of “nudges”
to encourage vaccination.
Meanwhile, RIETI Faculty Fellow Ryuichi Tanaka (Professor,
The University of Tokyo) assesses education policy, and I am
responsible for assessing labor policy. The lack of data in thisfield makes it difficult to implement RCT, and I rely on naturalexperiments using traditional government statistics for policy
assessment.
Our research efforts in each field aim to obtain high-quality,
highly reliable evidence, and we continue to work toward
the publication of academic papers presenting the results wehave announced in the form of discussion papers. I expect theestablishment of the EBPM Center to produce successful examplesof EBPM on the front line of policy making, and spread EBPM
initiatives to those in other government ministries and agencies.

5Topics

importance of data. The term “agile policy making” is often used.
In a “linear” model, where causes and effects are connected on a
one-to-one basis, decisions made at the P (planning) stage cannot
be changed later on. This is linked to the idea of administrative
infallibility. Given the uncertain and dynamic changes occurring in
the world around us, agile policy making frees us from this mirageof administrative infallibility by predicating policy making on theability to appropriately fine-tune the policy making process in the ageof dynamic industrial transformation. I think it is necessary to attaina consensus among the general population regarding this vision ofpolicy making and policy assessment, where policies are adjusted
dynamically in line with changes in the world around them.
The idea of adjusting policies risks being criticized as “fickle”
or “inconsistent.” However, if we bear in mind the conditions forswitching policy methods if a policy is not progressing as intended,this approach looks more like “adapting to circumstances.”
I believe that RIETI’s EBPM Center needs to establish new
examples of this agile policy making. Agility is required acrossan ever broader range of policy fields, and I hope that the EBPM
Center can establish this approach and examples of its successful
application, and spread these to other government departments.
Watanabe: Thank you. That’s a very important point. I think thevery premise of policy formation is changing. How should policies
be developed in a dynamically changing world, in terms of policy
time frame and general uncertainty? To begin with, what needs
should be incorporated, and what data should be gathered at the P(planning) stage? Our very approach to economic and industrial
policies and the way they are formulated are in question, and I
think the role of EBPM must evolve in response.

EBPM: logic model and data
Watanabe: One of the projects we have adopted at the EBPM
Center is a government program to attract semiconductor factories.
Under the program, the government will provide several billion
yen in subsidies to overseas semiconductor manufacturers,
Japanese companies and others for the establishment of large-scale
semiconductor factories. We have been approached by METI for
advice on this program.
For the evaluation of this large-scale program, a logic model isnecessary that specifies the issues, what sorts of policies should
be formulated to address them, and what these policies should
encourage. This requires an overall perspective. It’s also necessary
to obtain the advance consent of companies to provide data for use
in the evaluation after the program is implemented. So-called data
design is also very important. Government statistics can take ayear or two before being published, but we can measure economic

6

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

effects earlier if we establish prior access to point-of-sale (POS)
data and similar data.
Kawaguchi: I think that making companies that benefit fromassistance programs promise to provide data in advance is an
excellent idea. It would be good if we could build the infrastructure
to obtain data both from those companies that were selected forassistance programs and those that were not. This would facilitatea correct assessment of the program after implementation.
Ohashi: Building a sound logic model and ensuring that we canobtain the data needed for assessment prior to the implementationof the program are the two core pillars of EBPM. On the other
hand, there are also new issues: how to approach the logic model
if future forecasts are difficult to make, and how to choose
assessment data.
For instance, if the government were to state A (as a simple,
hypothetical example, that the number of future airport users willbe X), it will become unable to discuss policy making that leads
to a conclusion other than A. In some cases, it will doom itself toinsist on A, no matter how the world changes. This is one of themain problems with administrative infallibility.
Therefore, what is required is agile policy making: we think it
will be A, but it may be B or C, depending on the circumstances.
These assumptions should be incorporated into the P (planning)
logic model in advance.
Kawaguchi: Logic models are constructed with arrows pointing
from left to right, cause to effect, but as you just pointed out, I
think that the left-right arrows could point to more than one result
depending on the situation.
There are two steps in EBPM analysis. One is to ascertain thepresent situation based on the data. The other is to ascertain therelationships of cause and effect: If A happens, then B will occur.
In other words, in terms of a logic model, clarify the content ofeach “box” and describe the arrows that link the boxes. Until now,
EBPM focused on the causal inference represented by these arrows(in other words, proving the relationships between cause and effectstatistically), and whether or not there is substantial evidence of thecause-effect relationships represented by the arrows. However, basedon what you just discussed, Professor Ohashi, it is also important
to ascertain the present conditions in order to respond to changing
circumstances.
I’d like to present an example that shows just how important it is toaccurately ascertain the present situation. Raising the minimum wage
in non-metropolitan areas has been discussed as a way to preventthe overconcentration of people and business functions in Tokyo.
In the context of this discussion, the Ministry of Health, Labor andWelfare (MHLW) surveyed the attributes of workers on minimum
wage, revealing that many of them had only high school education,

S p ec i al Di scuss ion

Future outlook for EBPM and hopes for the EBPM Center
Watanabe: One of the projects that the EBPM Center will assess
is technology development using the Green Innovation Fund. This
represents the assessment of a large-scale, decade-long technology
development project. For projects like this, any attempt to evaluate
and correct the trajectory during the course of the project issubstantially impeded by the problem of infallibility. Do you haveany advice regarding long-term projects like this?
Ohashi: I think that the most difficult challenge on the front lineof policy making is establishing the issue. Once you’ve correctly
established the issue, you’re 60 or 70 percent of the way there.
I don’t think the EBPM Center should be a contracted
evaluation agency of the government. Rather, I believe we should
maintain a kind of tension with the government in our analyses.
We need to carry out full discussions and, even if it is determinedthat the policy is a failure, we need to make sure we can explain
what went wrong to cause this failure. In other words, we shouldverify the conditions that determine success or failure. The
function of the EBPM Center, however, is purely academic. I thinkthat the government should be responsible for pursuing policy
accountability.
Kawaguchi: For major policies, it’s important to verify themechanisms through which they affect the economy during theprocess of policy implementation so that we can gain some kindof insight to use in the next policy. It’s not just about success or
failure; some social and economic mechanisms only become clear
when policies are implemented, so I think it’s also vital to gain
insights that can be used in policy formation in the future.
Watanabe: RIETI Chairman YANO Makoto has also said that
EBPM must evolve, that we must engage in qualitative, as wellas quantitative, assessment. In this context, I take Professor
Ohashi’s advice that the EBPM Center should focus not only on

data but also on logic; and not only as advice, but also as words ofencouragement.
Ohashi: Among METI’s policies, for example, there is a large
group referred to as energy policies. These policies are formed byconsolidating the opinions of councils, committee members andstakeholders.
This method has potential weaknesses, one of which is that it ismore easily constrained by past circumstances. Another potential
weakness is that this format makes it difficult to incorporate insightfrom overseas. Many agencies are engaged in researching energy
policy case studies from overseas, but they only present objective
facts. There is an inability to adapt evidence from overseas foruse in a Japanese context and apply it in policy programs. I alsofeel that there is a lack of upcoming talent capable of doing this.
It is not possible to interpret the evidence without people who arefamiliar with both Japanese programs and overseas programs.
There is a need for personnel able to understand the essential
features of examples from overseas, and apply and transfer thesefeatures to a Japanese context.
Kawaguchi: I think it is important to thoroughly gather evidence
and apply it to the context. The front line of policy formation
works on short cycles, and there is often no time to collect andanalyze data after issues arise. It is therefore vital to link together
existing academic research and other resources, and apply thisevidence in the context of policy discussions in Japan.
I feel that there are many people with the capacity to engage
in EBPM, working in coordination with personnel at central andlocal government bodies. Many former students from our graduate
schools and others who have gained master’s degrees in public
policy at universities overseas now work within government
ministries. I think it’s also important to utilize these humanresources by appropriately deploying them to work on policies
in each government body where evidence is required. This will
also boost people’s motivation to learn specialized knowledge at
graduate school, creating a virtuous cycle of talent development.

Topicsat most. Meanwhile, many of those who had moved to Tokyo fromregional areas had a high level of education. The people who would
be affected by raising the minimum wage did not actually have thesame attributes as those who moved to Tokyo from non-metropolitan
areas. The data suggested that raising the minimum wage in regional
areas would not prevent the overconcentration of people and business
functions in Tokyo. In this way, the policy implications sometimes
become apparent without the need for difficult causal inference if we
simply gain a clear understanding of the present state of affairs. An
accurate grasp of the current situation is just as important, if not moreso, in EBPM, as in causal inference.

Ohashi: Unless people like that are promoted and become rolemodels, others won’t follow their lead.
Watanabe: That point is, in a way, the reverse of the issue ofembedding EBPM in the government and spreading it to key
policies. People need to show leadership, but at the same time, thespread of EBPM into policies will attract more people. It’s a bit of
the chicken-and-egg problem. I think that once a model for successis established, it will lead to a virtuous cycle.
Ohashi: EBPM will need to spread, not only within the government

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

7

S p ec i al Di scus s ion

but also in the context of legislation.

have a perspective that makes full use of previous policy efforts.

Kawaguchi: There is a wide range of stakeholders in policy
decisions, and some aspects of policy would be difficult to change.
There is a certain settling point that is acceptable to all of them.
It’s vital to prevent a situation from arising where the balance
between stakeholders suddenly collapses, leading to extreme
conclusions, and policies need to be maintained on a stable basis,
to some extent. Of course, policies should be constantly revised,and should not be continued blindly, but we must also be aware of
the risk of effective policies being drastically altered by politicallydriven interests. I feel that EBPM is also important in terms of
maintaining some continuity, if you like, in public administration.
It would be good if the legislature could be involved in this process
and participate in discussions in the same sort of forum.

Ohashi: I eagerly anticipate that the establishment of the EBPM
Center will lead not only to the evolution of existing EBPM
initiatives but also to taking on new challenges and producing
results. Many phenomena in the world around us are constantly
changing, and the direction of this change is uncertain, almost
like they are living creatures. By adapting policies to respond
appropriately to the movements of these creatures, policies will
inevitably become dynamic and agile. I think we need to develop
innovative EBPM that will make the previous, static, anatomical
attempts at EBPM look dated in comparison. As an organization
to lead agile and dynamic policy making, I expect the EBPM
Center not merely to provide advice on METI policies but rather toengage in an expanded range of initiatives toward comprehending
all social issues.
I think it’s crucial as a fundamental philosophy that EBPM is amethod for accumulating policy making insight, developing talent,
providing forums to meet the needs of young people aspiring topolicy making, including in the central government, and further
boosting the attractiveness of careers in public office. I lookforward to the further evolution of initiatives such as these at the
EBPM Center.

Watanabe: Thank you. Lastly, I would like to ask you each for a
final comment.

TopicsKawaguchi: The retrospective evaluation of policies using EBPM
is important, but I think that it is also crucial to begin with an
Evidence-Based Policy (EBP) approach that generates evidence
from previous policies. I think that it’s also important to have amechanism that enables policymakers to start on a small scale, andscale up successful models. The value of some policies lies in theirimplementation, not just their results, so I think it’s important to

Watanabe: Thank you, both of you. Thank you for your valuable
opinions today.

RIETI EBPM Center
Amid growing uncertainties caused by the climate crisis,
geopolitical risks and the pandemic, there is a needto redesign economic policy to include public–private
partnerships for “moon shot”-type large-scale advanced
R&D initiatives, new institutional designs to create newmarkets and promote innovation, and measures tostrengthen supply chain resilience.
In consideration of this significant change in circumstances, the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)
inaugurated a new RIETI EBPM Center on April 1, 2022. In collaboration with domestic and overseas researchers andpolicymakers, the center will strengthen retrospective policy assessments and develop new analytical tools to facilitate theprospective assessment of the economic effects of large-scale projects considered for implementation through public–
private partnership, including, for example, decarbonization, and to propose the data design necessary to evaluate eachpotential project. Through these efforts, RIETI aims to evolve evidence-based policy making (EBPM) and to play a corerole as a policy research institute that supports the advancement of economic and industrial policies through effective
analysis and resulting recommendations.

8

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

R

I

E

T

I

T OP IC S

S y mp osi um summar y

RIETI is focusing its efforts on the fusion of social science elements and industrial technology, so-called“Integrated Research.” The Integrated Research program uses this perspective to undertake research andincorporate new knowledge from other disciplines, such as natural sciences, law, political science, andsociology, into economics and policy studies.
RIETI and Kyoto University’s the Graduate School of Medicine have been developing a joint research projectsince January 2021 to determine the actual status of COVID-19 infection using an antibody test kit newly
developed by the Institut Pasteur in France. This is the first attempt in the world to conduct a large-scale,epidemiological study integrating medical and social fields using comprehensive human data, including
antibody tests. A symposium was held on December 19, 2022, to present the research results of the project.
In this symposium, the characteristics of the spread of COVID-19 and the status of behavioral changes inpeople were introduced as part of the results of this research, and opinions were exchanged on the future
vision for the utilization of health- and life-science data.

Kyoto University – RIETI Symposium

YAMAMOTO Masaki“A Fusion of Humanities & Sciences Research on the COVID-19

Lecturer, Graduate School of Medicine Kyoto University

TopicsSymposium held topresent research
results of theIntegrated Research

Pandemic: Prospects for with-COVID-19 society”
held on December 19, 2022

Report of Research Results
Since 2021, Kyoto University’s the Graduate School of
Medicine and RIETI have conducted an international joint
research project to determine the actual status of infection among
local residents and healthcare workers using an antibody test
kit developed by the Institut Pasteur in France. In order for awhole society to combat the spread of infectious diseases, it isessential to address not only medical efforts but also behavioral
changes in people. In this study, antibody tests and a web-basedquestionnaire survey were conducted on approximately 1,100
participants of the Nagahama Preliminary Prevention Cohort″,
which is being established by Kyoto University in Nagahama
City, Shiga Prefecture, in addition to medical workers at Kyoto
University Hospital. By integrating and analyzing the actual
situation of infection (including subclinical infection), the status of
behavioral changes in people, and socioeconomic activities, we aredeveloping a fusion of humanities & sciences research through thelife and social sciences.

“Medical-Social Science Fusion
Research for Clarification of the Actual
Situation of the COVID-19 Epidemic(Focusing on data analysis for Kyoto
University Hospital employees)”
Antibody testing for Kyoto University
Hospital employees was conducted on 614
participants. The SARS-CoV-2 antibody
testing assay using Luminex (MAGPIX) was developed at the
Pasteur Institute, and this assay is capable of simultaneous testingfor the five different proteins that make up the novel coronavirus(SARS-CoV-2).
These proteins are produced during infection with SARS CoV
2, but the spike protein (S) and its receptor binding domain (RBD)
are produced both during infection and vaccination, whereas theenvelope protein (E) and nucleocapsid protein (N) are not includedin the m-RNA vaccine and are produced only upon infection.
When we measured each type of antibody (IgG, IgA, andIgM) using these characteristics, N- protein IgG antibodies wereconsidered to be a relatively good indicator for determining

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

9the presence of infection (morbidity rate). As for antibodies to
S-protein, we believe that RBD IgG antibodies and S-protein IgG
antibodies are accurate test indicators, and we are planning tofurther investigate this in the future.
The N-protein IgG antibody retention rate rose to about 26%,
but this may be a little too high, given to the fact that hospitalspread infection control measures had been implemented at
Kyoto University Hospital, and we believe that further scrutiny
is necessary. S-protein IgG antibodies were found to rise steadily
with vaccination, with the retention rate of over 90% at the second
and third surveys.
As for future challenges, since the analysis is based on a
population that does not include many cases of clinical infection,
we need to accumulate more data in order to conduct a moreaccurate test. As for S-protein, we have not been able to analyze
whether RBD IgG antibodies and S-protein IgG antibodies areclinically useful, so we would also like to examine the correlation
with neutralizing antibodies. In addition, since the types ofvaccines are changing, we would like to focus on the effects ofdifferent vaccine types.

HIROTA Shigeru
Faculty Fellow, RIETI / Professor, Faculty of Economics, Kyoto

Topics

Sangyo University

MATSUDA Fumihiko
Professor, Graduate School of Medicine Kyoto University

Development of a New Antibody
Detection Method for COVID-19 and a
Large-Scale Antibody Survey using the
Nagahama Cohort: Progress report on
the second phase of the survey
In the second phase of the study (AugustSeptember 2022), we created a library of
peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs)
for all 1,101 participants in the Nagahama Cohort, and conducted
antibody testing with these PBMCs. At the same time, a social
science survey was conducted and participants were asked to selfreport their infection history and other information.
The results of the investigation showed that the use of peripheral
blood enabled the accurate measurement of the ratio of antibodies
to S- and N-proteins.
173 of 1,101 participants of this study tested positive for antiN-protein antibodies, which can only be obtained from viral
infection. Of these, 62 were aware of infection and 111 were
unaware, suggested the possibility that the virus may be spreadthrough subclinical infection.
The majority of those who were infected without the vaccine did
not acquire sufficient S1 and RBD antibodies to provide immunity
after infection. There were also a small number of vaccinatedindividuals who did not acquire sufficient antibodies.

10

Now that we have created a library of peripheral blood from thisstudy, we can determine which antibodies were produced in each
person, and we are planning new analyses to determine what thecause of these infection situations may be.
The Pasteur Institute is developing a test reagent for the Omicron
variant. This may also reveal whether or not the inoculated person
is sufficiently producing Omicron antibodies, and we would like toproceed with experiments using such test reagents in the future.
I believe that a third antibody test should be conducted. Thisis because in Nagahama, there was only one test conducted on
peripheral blood, so by obtaining data from two tests, we cananalyze the acquisition of group immunity using a time series
and determine how the number of infected people increases. I
also think that people's sense of caution has relaxed considerably,and by comparing data through time series, we may be able todetermine changes in awareness and behavior.

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

COVID-19 Infections, Behavioral
Change, and Social Factors
We attempted to verify the relationshipbetween people's behavioral changes andsocioeconomic factors, and infection fromthe second web-based survey and antibody
testing conducted on the “Nagahama Cohort”
participants in August 2022.
The method for verification was to use data on behavioral
change from the third dose of vaccine (administered since
December 2021) to the fourth dose (administered since May2022), since most of those infected were infected after the summerof 2022, and to regress the presence or absence of infection,
including subclinical infection, on possible factors.
The results showed that, first of all, with regard to preventive
actions, those who regularly measured their body temperaturetended to be more susceptible to infection, but there was no
significant correlation with other preventive actions, and noclear conclusion could be drawn as to which specific preventive
actions were effective in preventing infection. Rather, those who
were generally more risk averse tended to be less infected. In
other words, overall behavioral prudence is clearly related tothe presence or absence of infection. The results for temperature
measurement may reflect a reverse causal relationship, as those
who suspected infection due to poor physical condition wereparticularly cautious.
It was also found that those who live with preschool children

S y mp osi um summar y

Panel Discussion :“Utilization of Health and Life Science Data”

Chris DAICEO, Recika Co., Ltd.

Our company is a social implementer of
Web 3.0 elemental technologies such as data
management using blockchain technology,
non-fungible tokens (NFT), and decentralized
autonomous organization (DAO). In a joint
project between Kyoto University and RIETI,
our technology is being used in the data
management of the project.
Conventional data management, especially for personal data, isvery cumbersome, and the problems of information leakage andthe cost of reusing data are extremely high. Therefore, we thoughtthat a mechanism using blockchain would be optimal for assuringsafety, by allowing individuals to have ownership of their data,at the same time needing to separate the method of identifying
individuals from personal data.
The system we implemented uses the blockchain to allow
participants to issue IDs and passwords by themselves and returns
their data so that they can verify the data themselves. At that time,
we developed a system that is safe and prevents the leakage of
personal information by returning each individual's data encryptedwith their private key without linking it to personal information.

The DAO elemental technology we are working on, based on
distributed ledger technology, allows organizations themselves tomake decisions without a specific leader, and to build a system
in which the profits earned by the organization are returned to
distributed individuals. I believe that the DAO system will leadto an increase in the number of new types of organizations in thedigital world.

YOSHIHARA Hiroyuki
Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University

Millennial Medical Record is a data
platform that enables the collection of
medical information under real names.
We, Life Data Initiative, the promoter ofthis project, have been certified as the firstauthorized anonymously processed medical
information business operator based on the
Next-Generation Medical Infrastructure Law.
Data needs to be aggregated to some extent and put into acommon format. Therefore, in 2015, with the support of the Japan
Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), welaunched the Millennium Medical Record Project to establish asystem for the collection of medical data on a national level, andwith the implementation of the Next-Generation Law in 2019,secondary use of medical information became possible.
Currently, medical information from 35 facilities is collected,
and by providing this data to researchers, we receive usage feesand operate the business. However, the data was not structured or
standardized, making it difficult to incorporate into the database.
Therefore, with the cooperation of the Cabinet Office, we aredeveloping a data conversion service as a social infrastructure.
The problems we face are numerous. Under the current NextGeneration Law, there is no compulsion to provide data, andcertified providers are responsible for the costs of operation. Thereis also the problem that data on missing or deceased persons
cannot be used because use is based on the premise that individuals
are notified of the data use. Linkage with administrative and school
data is also an issue, and the development of medical and other IDs
by the government is also anticipated. To solve these problems, we
believe it is necessary to establish a quasi-public organization thatspecializes in drafting legislation and building the future system.

Topicsmay be more susceptible to infection probably because they haveless freedom to avoid infection due to the necessity to care for theirchildren and to bring them to daycare or nursery school. On theother hand, those who worked from home tended not to have been
infected.
It is also important to note that the existence of a relationshipbetween the evaluation of government policies and infection was
discovered. Those who highly evaluated the country's policies in
the first survey (2021) were more likely to be infected. A possible
hypothesis for this is that those who valued the policy of easing
restrictions and turning the economy around actively went out andbecame infected, or that those who questioned the effectiveness ofthe government's policy acted cautiously and avoided infection.
In any case, it is extremely important to understand more clearly
which specific policies were evaluated by respondents and how,and to use this information towards policy making to control
infection.

To read full summary:

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

11

R

I

E

T

I

T OP I C S

Research results of

Global Intelligence Series
Inviting leading experts from Japan, the United States, Europe and Asia, we will collect and discuss
information on a variety of global issues, including economic security and regional issues such as the U.S.China conflict and the situation in the Middle East, the future of the Chinese economy, climate change,
environmental and energy issues, the post-colonial trade order, supply chain risks, and the SDGs to makepolicy recommendations.
We present research results from the research project “Studies on Transformations of International Systems
and their Impact on Japan’s Mid- & Long-term Competitiveness” and introduce RIETI BBL webinars on Global
Intelligence Series.
Research projectStudies on Transformations of International Systems and their Impact on Japan's Mid- & Long-term Competitiveness

Topics
Project Leader:

Sub-Leaders:

WATANABE Tetsuya

SHIROYAMA Hideaki

SAHASHI Ryo

ITO Asei

ARIMURA Toshi H.

Former Vice President, RIETI

Faculty Fellow, RIETI

Faculty Fellow, RIETI

Faculty Fellow, RIETI

Faculty Fellow, RIETI

Overview
This project explores new international economic systems, while assessing various domestic and foreign risks that the Japanese economy may face in the future,
based on the analyses, in particular, of (1) interactions between economic security policies and industrial, science and technology policies; and between policymakers
and various stakeholders in the U.S., the EU, China and other countries; (2) the Chinese economy, focusing on the developments in the 2010’s and prospects for the2020’s in the areas of innovation and digitization, external expansion and governance and structural reforms; (3) the economic impacts on the Japanese economy andindustries of the possible Carbon Border Adjustment Measures under discussion in the EU in the context of addressing climate change; and (4) the digital revolution.
In implementing this project, we will try to deepen exchanges of views between policymakers in Japan and overseas, including METI and relevant ministries andagencies, and strengthen interdisciplinary discussions.
RIETI Discussion Papers (As of the end of December 2022)

on the elderly’s healthcare utilization” (XIE Mingjia, YIN Ting,
ZHANG Yi and OSHIO Takashi)

22-E-110“How Do Industrial Guidance Funds Affect the Performanceof Chinese Enterprises?” (KAJITANI Kai, CHEN Kuang-hui and
MITSUNAMI Kohei)

22-E-032“Economic Transition and Wage Gap between Communist Party
Members and Nonmembers in China” (Xinxin MA)

22-E-101“Influence of E-commerce on Birth Rate: Evidence from rural
China based on county-level longitudinal data” (KOMATSU Sho,
MA Xinxin and SUZUKI Aya)
22-E-081“Catching the Political Leader’s Signals: Economic policy
uncertainty and firm investment in China” (ITO Asei, LIM Jaehwan
and ZHANG Hongyong)22-E-033“The Hidden Cost of Having More Children: The impact of fertility

12

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITIONRIETI Policy Discussion Papers (As of the end of December 2022)
22-P-020“Market-based Reform of Production Factors in China” (Chi Hung
KWAN)
22-P-018“How China Has Increased the International Competitiveness of
Science and Technology: A summary of the governance system
of science and technology and the trial and error of institutional
design” (MENG Jianjun and PAN Motao)

G lob al In t ell i ge nce S er ies
To see this video:

RIETI BBL webinars on Global Intelligence Series (As of the end of December 2022)

The American Mid-Term Election Outcome and Its Implications
November 16, 2022

Speaker: Bruce STOKES (Visiting Senior Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States)
The American voters have spoken and established control of the U.S. Congress for the next two years. What are the implications for U.S.
foreign and domestic policy, partisanship in American politics and the future of American democracy, and the 2024 Presidential election?
And what may all this mean for Japan’s relationship with the United States?

Understanding and Countering Beijing’s Strategy of Economic Decoupling on Chinese Terms
October 6, 2022

Speaker: John LEE (Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute)
It is widely assumed that America is pursuing a decoupling strategy from China to strengthen its economy and weaken China’s.
However, Beijing has been pursuing economic separation since before Xi Jinping came into power, with hopes to ease America out of
Asia in strategic, military, political and institutional terms. While Chinese economic policy aims to create Sinocentric infrastructure that
ensures China can benefit disproportionately from the resulting economic system, the West must counter this strategy to prevent China fromdominating global supply chains and innovation, especially in the lucrative high-tech sectors.

July 27, 2022

Speaker: Alessio TERZI (Economist, DG ECFIN European Commission; Lecturer, Sciences Po Lille)
This seminar revolves around the book written by Alessio TERZI titled Growth for Good. In this book, TERZI addresses climate change
from the perspective of economic growth and capitalism. For example, should economic growth be abandoned in order to successfully
mitigate climate change? Does ceasing the use of fossil fuels and transitioning to green energy hinder economic growth? Our society
is organized in a capitalistic manner. Abandoning capitalism in the fight against climate change would cause tremendous difficulties.
Therefore, TERZI outlines the use of capitalism against climate catastrophe involving the government, business, and citizens.

TopicsGrowth and Capitalism in the Era of Climate Change

Carbon Pricing, From a Burden to an Opportunity? Testimony and shared vision from EDF, Europe’s leading electric utility
June 23, 2022

Speaker: Vincent DUFOUR (Senior Vice President Japan & Korea, EDF International)
Carbon pricing is an instrument that places the burden of damage from greenhouse gases on the large carbon emitters. One carbon
pricing system is called the emission trading system (ETS) in which mandatory markets set a cap on emissions for large emitters. An
example of a successful ETS is in the European Union (EU) which is home to EDF, an electric utility company largely owned by the
French state. In this presentation, Vincent DUFOUR of EDF addresses the EU ETS’ development from the beginning to the present. Also,
Vincent DUFOUR touches on EDF’s views on carbon pricing and the EU ETS, and how they relate to Japan.

The Sword and the Shield: The economics of targeted sanctions
July 21, 2022

Speaker: Daniel AHN (Global Fellow, Wilson Center)
The Russia-Ukraine War of 2022 has unleashed the most comprehensive sanctions regime against Russia in recent memory. However,questions remain as to how effective they would be? Dr. Ahn shall discuss his research into the effects of the previous US-EU sanctions
regime from 2014 to 2016, the first study using detailed firm and individual-level data to precisely measure the empirical impact of targeted
sanctions. Dr. Ahn shall describe his findings, his hypothesis into the mechanisms on how sanctions work, how the target responded, theirpolicy implications, and some lessons for today and for future sanctions regimes.

Biden’s First Year: The international and domestic implications for 2022
January 12, 2022

Speaker: Bruce STOKES (Visiting Senior Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States)
January 20 marks the end of the first year of the Biden Administration. How do the American people think he has done? As 2022 begins,
what are Americans’ greatest domestic and international concerns, their views on trade, China, Japan, and Russia? In November, theU.S. will have Congressional elections. What does history and polling data tell us about the possible outcome? Will Republicans reclaim
Congress and, if so, what does this mean for Biden’s presidency?

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

13

Cornerstone of RIETI’s
Industrial Policy Research– In Memory of Dr. Ryutaro Komiya

MORIKAWA Masayuki
Special Column

President and CRO, RIETI

Dr. Ryutaro Komiya passed away on October 31, 2022.
Dr. Komiya was the first director general of the ResearchInstitute of International Trade and Industry (MITI/RI),
established in 1987, and served as its leader for 10 years until
1997. MITI/RI was the predecessor to the Research Institute of
Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), which was established in
2001, and Dr. Komiya laid the “foundation of the foundation” of
RIETI’s current research system. In his autobiography (Komiya,2013), Dr. Komiya recollected that it was like “a bolt from theblue” when he was asked to become the director of MITI/RI, as hewas known for his critical stance on the policies of MITI during
several phases of the period of rapid economic growth. The factthat MITI invited a first-class economist with critical views toward
MITI to serve as director general of MITI/RI is a testament to theinsight and open-mindedness of MITI at that time.
Dr. Komiya established a procedure whereby research results
are published as discussion papers, which are then peer-reviewed
by external experts, and a system whereby university-based
economists are invited to participate in research activities asvisiting research fellows. The current RIETI has maintained thesesystems, although in different forms. Unlike in recent years, when
it was not possible to easily download journal articles from theinternet, the researchers also benefited from being able to browse

14

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

through the past English-language economic journals owned by
Dr. Komiya, which were kept in the director’s office.
…………
In the mid-1990s, I became a senior researcher at the institute,with Dr. Komiya as my “boss.” When I was a university student,
I studied using textbooks on microeconomics and international
economics that he had co-authored, so of course I knew his
name, but that was the first time I had met him in person. I was
nervous at first because he was a well-known economist who
wrote controversial articles on economic policy, but his warm
personality soon made me comfortable and we often had lunch ordinner together. As Dr. Komiya himself wrote (Komiya, 2013),
he believed it was important to visit the actual sites of economic
importance around Japan, and he was a careful reader of the“Survey of Production Areas,” a document published by MITI.
I had the opportunity to accompany him on a tour of a local
factory, and he was a man of wide-ranging curiosity, asking manytechnical questions.
At that time, most of the full-time researchers at MITI/
RI were assigned researchers from MITI or private firms andorganizations. For the researchers who lacked an academic
research background, Dr. Komiya provided cordial and detailed
instructions on how to write papers based on his teachingexperience. I strongly remember that he emphasized (1) the needto have a clear hypothesis when writing a paper, and (2) theneed to have a proper list of references formatted and organizedcorrectly. He did not highly value any research that only
consisted of analysis of data that presented observed facts without
hypotheses. This form of research is called “anatomical” research.
As was the case with his own writing, he highly valued researchthat led to conclusions that differed from the accepted wisdom.
Recently, I have been more involved in guiding and reviewing
thesis writing, and without a doubt, I am still strongly influenced
by Dr. Komiya.
At that time, Japan’s trade surplus was strongly criticized by the
U.S., and Dr. Komiya argued that it was wrong to regard a trade
surplus as a problem, based on the idea of a savings/investment
balance (Komiya, 1994). 1995 saw the rapid appreciation of theyen, and interest in the policy field was growing. Against thisbackdrop, I had the opportunity to co-author a paper titled “HowExchange Rates are Determined?” Later, it was included as achapter in An Economic Analysis of Japanese Industry and Trade(Komiya, 1999), which is a compilation of papers written by Dr.
Komiya during his time at MITI/RI. Although formally a coauthored paper, it was a written version of Dr. Komiya’s theories
and became valuable on-the-job training for me. It contains
several arguments, but one point is that the real exchange rate
reflects the terms of trade in the long run, which is also importantwhen considering the recent depreciation of the yen in Japan’s
economy.
…………
Japan’s industrial policy attracted worldwide attention, andresearch by economists became more active around 1980. This
was a time when the Japanese economy was doing well before
entering a prolonged period of stagnation, and when research on
the theoretical basis for industrial policy, such as new industrialorganization theory, new trade theory, and endogenous growththeory, was flourishing in the field of economics. Few economists,
including those before that time, have written as much aboutindustrial policy as Dr. Komiya. For example, in the introduction
to Industrial Policy of Japan (Komiya, Okuno, and Suzumura,1984), the first comprehensive book on industrial policy in Japan,
he describes “what industrial policy is,” “theoretical foundationsof industrial policy,” “excessive competition,” and “decisionmaking process of industrial policy.” In An Economic Analysis
of Japanese Industry and Trade (Komiya, 1999), two chapters,“Japan’s industrial policy in the 1980s” and “Japan’s industrial
adjustment assistance” are directly related to industrial policy.
After making careful reservations, Dr. Komiya defines
industrial policy as “those aspects of government economic
policy in which policymakers use various means to influence theallocation of resources among industries, whether to address so-called ‘market failures’ or for other purposes, and to regulate,restrain or promote certain types of economic activity in theprivate sector” (Komiya, 1999). The basic argument is that Japan’s
postwar economic development was achieved mainly through thecreativity and vitality of private companies, and that the role ofindustrial policy was marginal.
On the other hand, the report does not deny that industrial
policy has a role to play, of course, as it lists various policies
such as the protection of infant industries, promotion of R&D,
information effects of policy taxation and finance, industrial
adjustment assistance, and environmental protection as industrial
policies that correct for market failures. By organizing industrial
policy using common and well-understood economic concepts
as a “common language,” the dialogue between researchersand practitioners was established, and it led to RIETI’s current
principle of building bridges between academic research andpolicy practice. However, he stated that it is difficult to evaluate
the effects of specific industrial policies on industry and theeconomy, and that he would not attempt to undertake theseevaluations. This would have been a natural decision at a time
when methodologies for elucidating the causal effects of policies
were in their early stages and high-quality empirical research onindustrial policies was limited.
We would like to be able to ask Dr. Komiya where theproblems of the current Japanese and global economies lie andhow he would evaluate recent economic policies, including
industrial policies, but unfortunately that is no longer possible.
With technological advances in econometric analysis and greater
availability of data than at the time, the scope for research thatcan be useful in evidence-based policy formation has expanded.
There is a growing understanding of the importance of suchresearch among policy practitioners. We would like to repay Dr.
Komiya’s kindness by conducting objective and neutral research
and making good policy recommendations.

Special Column

SPECIAL COLUMN

References
Ryutaro Komiya (1994). The Economics of Trade Surplus/Deficit:
The Foolishness of Japan-U.S. Friction [Boeki Kuroji/Akaji no
Keizaigaku], Toyo Keizai Inc.
Ryutaro Komiya (1999). An Economic Analysis of JapaneseIndustry and Trade [Nihon no Sangyo/Boeki no Keizai Bunseki],Toyo Keizai Inc.
Ryutaro Komiya (2013). Economics: My Progress as a Scholar anda Teacher [Keizaigaku Waga Ayumi: Gakusya to shite Kyoshi toshite], Minerva Shobo.
Ryutaro Komiya, Masahiro Okuno and Kotaro Suzumura (eds.)(1984). Industrial Policy of Japan [Nihon no Sangyo Seisaku],
University of Tokyo Press.

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

15ME E T O UR F E L L O WS

East Asian and European Firms:
Comrades or competitors
Interview

Willem THORBECKE

Meet Our Fellows

RIETI Title: Senior Fellow
Expertise: International Economics, Monetary Economics

His profile:

I have been looking at firms in Japan, South Korea, Germany,and France, and trying to get a sense of the extent to which
they work together or compete with each other by checking
exchange rates and how they are affecting firms. I looked at
how exchange rates affect stock returns as they are a measureof the profitability of a firm. For example, if an exchange
rate appreciation benefits Toyota, it means they are primarily
cooperating and purchasing parts and components from othercountries. Conversely, if it harms Toyota, it means they are
primarily competing.

In Germany, 60% of sectors benefit when the euro getsstronger relative to the yen, suggesting that there is a lot of
input from Japan going to Germany. In addition, no sectors
are harmed, suggesting that the competition is not as intense
as we would have thought. Meanwhile, the results were almost
the opposite for the won. This suggests that for European
firms, there is a lot of cooperation with Japanese firms, but a
lot of competition with Korean firms.
We often think of Korea and Japan as competing a lot, but
I found that nine out of 36 sectors in Korea benefit when thewon becomes stronger relative to the yen, suggesting that
there are a lot of inputs from Japan going to Korea.

The effect of exchange rate changes on sectors and firms

I specifically looked at how stock returns in many sectors
were affected by exchange rate changes. In France, I foundthat out of 33 different sectors, 20 sectors benefit when theeuro becomes stronger relative to the yen. For example, there
is a firm in France called Manitou that purchases enginesfrom a Japanese company called Kubota. When the euro
becomes stronger, Manitou can purchase more parts andcomponents or purchase them more cheaply. There are manysuch companies that purchase parts and components, capital
goods and intermediate goods from Japan. I also found that
only three out of the 33 sectors are harmed when the euro
gets stronger. This suggests that there is a lot of cooperation
between French firms and Japanese importers.
On the other hand, if you look at the Korean won, I foundalmost the opposite result. I found that only two sectors
benefit when the won becomes stronger relative to the euro.
Those are telecommunication services with French companies
like Orange importing smartphones from Samsung, andelectronic entertainment with French gaming companies
receiving input from Korean programmers. This suggeststhat there is a lot of competition between European firms andKorean firms.

16

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

The implications of exchange rate changes

The results suggest that Japan plays a vital role in the world
economy as an upstream provider of parts and components
and capital goods. Many companies in other countries benefit
when their respective currencies get stronger relative to theyen because they can import more parts and components,
capital goods and intermediate goods from Japan. On
the other hand, the results suggest that there is a lot ofcompetition between European firms and Korean firms.
France has gone through a process of de-industrializationand has become much weaker in manufacturing. Therefore,
one thing that France could do is to try to attract foreign
direct investment (FDI) from Japan, which has a history oftransmitting capital goods, managerial skills and technicalknowledge. If France could attract Japanese companies,
the country could gain some of these benefits. France
could do so by simplifying its taxes and making them lessdistortionary, and by improving the educational level ofcertain neighborhoods with many immigrants.
The results also suggest that there is close cooperation
between Korean firms and Japanese firms, despite theirgovernments being in conflict a lot of the time. This suggeststhat it could be worthwhile to consider a free-trade agreement
between the two countries in order to allow firms to benefit
from trading with each other.

Additional insight

To see this video:

Meet Our Fellows

The reason I chose Germany, France, Japan and South
Korea as the focus of my study is because Germany andFrance are the two largest economies in Europe, and Japanand Korea are the two most advanced countries in East Asia,
so it seemed like a natural choice.
There may be an argument as to whether the depreciationof the yen is good or bad for Japan. What we see is thatcompanies like Toyota benefit very much from a weak yen
not because it increases their exports, but because they haveoutsourced a lot of production and are now exporting mainly
higher-end vehicles. Therefore, their exports do not respondto the exchange rate, but their profitability does. On the other
hand, it is not very good for the pharmaceutical industry
because they import a lot from abroad, and when the yen is
weak, they cannot import as much. It really depends on the
sector.
One thing we see in France is that their luxury sector
is very strong. Such companies in France produce good
products but price them very high. On the other hand, suchcompanies in Japan also produce good products, but theirprices are much more reasonable. I think it could be beneficial
for Japanese companies to learn how to charge more for theirluxury products.

Interview

How Did Japan Cope with COVID-19?
Two years of documenting consumption
behavior with big data

KONISHI Yoko
RIETI Title: Senior Fellow
Expertise: Econometrics, Statistics, Service Industries (Tourism

Her profile:

Policy, Energy-saving Labels, and Consumer’s Behavior)

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed ourdaily lives in terms of eating, learning, working and leisuretime. As of this date, Japan has experienced five waves ofwidespread infection (as of the time of writing) and three
emergency declarations but has coped with the crisis without
mandatory lockdowns, social restrictions or mandatory maskwearing as seen in other countries.
We will introduce the initial disruption, the adaptation
period and the change to a new normal by using consumption
big data for the two-year period of January 2020 to December

2021. We used point-of-sales (POS) data from supermarkets,convenience stores, home centers, drugstores, consumer
electronics stores and mass merchandisers, as well as datafrom household bookkeeping applications. The POS data wasused to observe item-level sales trends, while the household
bookkeeping application data was used to observe trends inservices. This made it possible to comprehensively understandthe changes of consumer behavior through the pandemic.

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

17

ME E T O UR F E L L O WS

The initial disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic

Meet Our Fellows

In terms of entertainment expenditures, leisure spending on
movies, concerts and travel declined sharply, but spending on
manga and games increased during the pandemic comparedwith the same months of 2019. The monthly growth rates
of manga and games were higher during the three declaredstates of emergency, suggesting that they have been the main
choices for indoor entertainment during the pandemic.
As for the trends in the sales of staple foods, processed
foods and seasonings at supermarkets, just before the firststate of emergency, staple food sales increased by 33.0%,
processed foods by 24.5%, and seasonings by 12.7%.
Regarding meal services since the pandemic started,
supermarket food sales continued to increase, while spending
on food and beverage services continued to decrease. The
decline was greatest at the time of the first state of emergency,with spending at drinking establishments falling to about
10% of that in 2019. With the data, we can further observe theimpact of COVID-19 on specific types of restaurants, as wellas on the timing of meals.
To analyze whether telecommuting has become moreprevalent, we observed the sales trends of webcams andheadsets, which are used for online meetings and classes.
Shortly before the first state of emergency, the growth rateof webcams sharply increased by 386.1% and headsets by
524.4%, before sharply decreasing due to shortages caused by
rapid demand increases and store closures.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, infection prevention
products became essential goods in our daily lives. Over the
past two years, the sales of these products have consistently
exceeded pre-COVID-19 levels. At the peak of the second
wave of the outbreak, sales of masks and hand sanitizers
were up 1,689.2% and 2,077.6%, respectively. The data
indicated that we continued to purchase masks and handsanitizers, regardless of the number of infections or the levelof vaccination rates.

payments compared with January 2019. There has also beena shift to cashless payment for services, with the cashless
payment ratio increasing by 20% for cafes, by 18% for beautysalons, by 17% for clothing stores, and by 11% for drinking
establishments. It turns out that credit cards are used for highunit price services such as clothing stores and beauty salons,
while e-money payments are used at cafes and convenience
stores with low unit prices.
We continued to purchase prevention essentials such as
face masks and hand sanitizers during low and high infectionlevels and vaccination rates. Meanwhile, the spread of
misinformation on social networking services (SNS) caused
a rapid explosion in purchases, stabilizing when the correct
information was provided.
Finally, we used the POS data to draw a cumulative density
function for the number of masks sold weekly in 2019,2020 and 2021. The cumulative density function does notprovide information on the scale, but it tells us the degree ofconcentration and dispersion of purchase patterns in eachyear. In 2019, purchases were concentrated in the winter andhay fever seasons, indicating a seasonality in mask purchasing
behavior. In 2020, the rate exceeded 30% in the week of theWorld Health Organization (WHO) state of emergency inJanuary. In 2021, mask purchasing behavior did not show any
concentration or dispersion of purchases due to seasonality or
the sudden shortage of masks. In other words, the seasonalityof mask purchases had disappeared.
COVID-19 changed people’s behavior significantly. The
types and quantities of products and services purchased
fluctuated daily and weekly due to changes in the infection
situation and social environment. However, official economic
statistics observe weekly fluctuations, and some are publishedas late as the end of the following month or even one or two
years in the future. That is why we focused on big data. By
using POS data and household bookkeeping application
data, we succeeded in creating a clear picture of Japanese
consumption behavior and explored how people living inJapan tackled the spread of COVID-19 by purchasing certain
goods and maintaining safe physical distancing.

Adapting to the new normal

To see this video:
Since the pandemic, new shopping practices, such as bodytemperature checking kiosks and hand sanitizer dispensers
at store entrances, have been adopted to prevent infection,and cashless payment has increased to protect store clerks
and customers. Supermarkets, convenience stores, drugstoresand home improvement stores have seen a decrease in cash

18

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

Comments on

Current Research
COMMENTSARAKI Shota
Fellow (Policy Economist)
Labor Economics, Personnel
Economics, Applied
Microeconometrics

My research is based on two main research interests.
The first is an applied microeconometric analysis using the COVID-19 pandemic as a naturalexperiment. I analyze the impact of spectators on players’ performance in sports, focusing on nonspectator games. I also conduct a study to measure the effects of policies to support shopping district
events, focusing on interruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The second is a study of workers’ aptitude ability for capital and technology. Using the PIAAC survey,
which simultaneously examines the abilities required for a job and the abilities possessed by individual
workers, I am studying the process by which workers find a suitable job. I also analyze how promotions
and personnel transfers occur using firm personnel data.

COMMENTS

Fellow
Macroeconomics, Industrial
Dynamics, Stochastic Processes

Although the importance of high-growth companies (HGFs) has been widely accepted in recent
literature, it is particularly difficult to predict which companies will become HGFs. Using comprehensive
firm-level data and the theory of probability, I am currently studying the existence of features thatcharacterize HGFs’ firm growth dynamics by investigating the statistical regularities of firm growth
dynamics and the process of firm growth.

COMMENTSHASHIMOTO Yuki
Fellow (Policy Economist)
Labor Economics, ImmigrantWorkers, SMEs, EBPM

My research focuses on both foreign workers in Japan and on the policy effects of industrial policy. In
our research on foreign workers in Japan, we analyze job segregation and wage distribution between
Japanese and foreign workers, and measure productivity of firms employing foreign workers. In the
EBPM analysis of industrial policy, we examine whether the application and adoption of subsidy
programs for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have increased the productivity of firms.

Meet Our Fellows

ARATA Yoshiyuki

COMMENTS

IKEUCHI Kenta
Senior Fellow (Policy
Economist)
Empirical Analysis on R&D,
Innovation and Productivity

I conduct empirical analyses on R&D, innovation and productivity. In particular, I am interested in basic
scientific and academic research at universities and other institutions, industry-academia collaboration,
how university-launched ventures and academic start-ups contribute to innovation and economic
growth, dynamic analysis of knowledge networks using patent and academic literature database, andthe effects of R&D tax incentives. I also participate in the OECD’s international comparative projecton the dynamics of employment and productivity (DynEmp/MultiProd) and contribute to providing
analysis of Japanese data. I am also involved in promoting evidence-based policy making (EBPM) on
science and technology innovation policy by participating in research projects at the National Instituteof Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) and the Science for Redesigning Science, Technology andInnovation Policy Center (SciREX Center) at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.

COMMENTSITO Arata
Senior Fellow
Macroeconomics

My research focuses on uncertainty and social learning. I currently conduct a research project on theeffects of policy uncertainty on the real economy and financial markets. As part of this project, I am
updating data on news-based economic policy uncertainty indices for Japan each month. The data
is available on the RIETI website as well as at PolicyUncertainty.com. I am also engaged in a research
project on social learning using big data on consumption and newspaper coverage in the early stagesof the COVID-19 pandemic.

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

19ME E T O UR F E L L O WS
COMMENTSKONDO Keisuke
Senior Fellow
Spatial Economics, Development
Economics, Labor Economics,
Applied Econometrics(Microeconometrics, Spatial
Econometrics, Bayesian
Econometrics)

As Japan faces a declining population, there is an increasing need to consider how to maintain anddevelop urban and rural economies. My research aims to bridge the gap between academic researchand policy making so that I can contribute to the Japanese government’s evidence-based policy making(EBPM) for regional revitalization. I have enhanced policy discussions by publishing RIETI discussion
papers on analysis of regional differences in fertility rates, evaluation of compact city policies, ex-anteevaluation of migration subsidy policies, evaluation of productivity gains from urban agglomeration,
evaluation of market competition through markups, and evaluation of the causal impact of minimum
wage on young people’s migration. Recently, I have been conducting empirical research integrating
geospatial information and micro data in relation to data science, with the hope of developing aframework for systematic evaluation of urban and regional policies.

COMMENTSLIU Yang
FellowLabor Economics, Employment,
Wage, Human Capital, Labor
Market, Migration

1. The first research topic is job creation and job destruction that occur simultaneously within thesame firm in Japan, focusing on the effects of firm behaviors and characteristics on job creation anddestruction.
2. The second research topic is an examination of labor market outcomes of immigrants living in Japan.
A large-scale dataset of individuals is used for this study.
3. The third research topic is identification of economic and cultural factors in determining Japaneseand foreign female labor force participation in Japan. Despite living in the same social and economic
environment that has long been considered disadvantageous for women, we notice a higher
probability of female labor force participation for immigrants than for Japanese. The reasons are
examined using a large dataset of both groups in Japan.
4. The fourth research topic is an investigation of the impact of women’s reservation wage on thegender gap, based original individual data from China.

Meet Our Fellows

COMMENTS

MATSUMOTO Kodai
Fellow (Policy Economist)
Labor Economics, Public
Assistance Policy

There are three studies on which we are currently working. The first is the impact of the employmentof persons with disabilities on corporate profits. In Japan, the minimum nnumber of employees withdisabilities in a company is mandated based on the total number of employees in that company.
By using this system, we estimate its causal effects. In the second study, we examine the impact ofpolicies to promote employment of persons with disabilities on employment figures. If a company fails
to meet its quota of employees with disabilities, it must pay a levy based on the size of the company,
but in 2015, the number of eligible companies changed. The impact of this policy intervention will beassessed. The third is the impact of receiving welfare on well-being. Receiving welfare benefits may
reduce well-being due to stigmas and other factors, but we will empirically verify whether this is thecase.

COMMENTS

NAKATA Daigo
Senior Fellow
Public Economics, Public
Finance, Social Security, HealthCare

I performed the following analyses on taxation and social security systems:
1. Simulation analysis of fiscal sustainability
2. Impact on household savings, employment and labor supply
3. Impact on firms’ labor demand
In recent years, I have studied impacts of household financial literacy, future insecurity and social
capital.
In particular, I analyze the effects of these factors on the following:A) Impact on risky asset ownership and asset accumulation behavior
B) Employment and saving behavior of no-asset householdsC) Behavior of middle-aged and elderly persons in terms of deciding to receive pension benefits earlier or laterD) Changes in subjective life expectancy prediction and asset accumulation due to health shocks
E) Decision-making on living legacy gifts

COMMENTSONUMA Hiroki
Fellow (Policy Economist)
Environmental and Energy
Economics, Climate Change
Policy, Disaster Management

20

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITIONMy research focuses on environmental economics and disaster risk management. My recent work has
investigated what factors encourage or hinder the implementation of household disaster prevention
measures. More specifically, I have quantitatively examined whether “charity hazard” exists in Japanesehousehold preparedness for natural disasters using survey data. I have also explored the impact ofcarbon pricing on firms' environmental performance and residential energy consumption in Japan.

COMMENTS

SEKIGUCHI Yoichi
Senior Fellow
Local Economy

I conduct research and make policy recommendations related to the revitalization of regional
economies, including tourism. In December 2022, I published the book Wellness Tourism to Energize
the Body, Mind and Community (Japanese). In the book, I attempted to clarify the overall picture ofwellness tourism based on as much data as possible, including the background of growing interestin wellness tourism, which involves experiencing activities that utilize local resources such as nature,
culture, food and human resources, the characteristics of wellness tourism, related national policies,and domestic and international examples.

COMMENTSSEKIZAWA Yoichi
Senior Fellow
Japan’s FTA Policy, Application

My research interest is whether psychological variables, especially emotion-related variables, influence
personal political or economic decisions, and whether psychological intervention such as cognitive
behavioral therapy and mindfulness can correct inappropriate political or economic decisions andbehaviors. For this purpose, I work with psychiatrists and social scientists.

of Cognitive Therapy to Social

COMMENTSSUMIYA Kazuhiko
Fellow (Policy Economist)
Labor Economics, Public
Economics, Applied

I have three research topics. The first is to estimate the effect of income taxes on labor supply, wages
and other labor market outcomes using Danish administrative data. Second, as part of the evidencebased policy making (EBPM) project at RIETI, I work with METI to evaluate their policies. So far, I haveanalyzed the effects of receiving the “Nadeshiko brand” and the “Manufacturing subsidies.” Third, I am
interested in developing methods for program evaluation.

Meet Our Fellows

Science

Microeconometrics

COMMENTSTAMURA Suguru
Senior Fellow
Science and Technology,
Innovation Policy

I have administrative experience in the Technology Evaluation and Research Division of MITI and theCouncil for Science, Technology and Innovation. In the Technology Evaluation and Research Division,
I was in charge of conducting evaluations of METI and NEDO R&D project achievement, building
evaluation systems, and, in particular, designing evaluation items. Based on this experience, I am
interested in the evaluation of R&D policies. In recent years, I have been trying to elucidate the actual
status of standardization activities. So far, I have conducted four surveys, collected the related data,and published them. I am working to establish and disseminate measurement methods by providing
this data to the research repositories of the International Organization for Standardization. I intend tocontinue this research in order to improve the methods of measuring standardization activities. The
results of my studies are published in journals such as Technovation, Computer Standards & Interfaces,
Science and Public Policy, and other innovation research journals.

COMMENTSZHANG Hongyong
Senior Fellow
International Trade andInvestment, Chinese Economy,
Applied Microeconometrics

1. Using multiple government statistics, I conduct a quantitative analysis of the production networks ofJapanese firms in Japan and overseas, the impact of supply chain disruptions and firms’ responses,
trends in the reshoring of manufacturing industry and friend-shoring, and the effects of subsidies tostrengthen domestic production and diversify supply chains.
2. I carry out an empirical analysis using micro data on the impact of Chinese industrial subsidies on
Chinese firms’ innovation activities, exports and international competitiveness.
3. Using text data containing press coverage of Chinese President Xi Jinping and data on Chineselisted companies, I provide a quantitative analysis of the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU),
policy agenda setting, progress of state capitalism, and the relationship between political visits andcompany performance.

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

21RESEARCHDIGEST

Economic Outcomes
and Regional Disparityof High-Speed Railways
MANAGI Shunsuke
Faculty Fellow, RIETI/Distinguished Professor of Technology and Policy, Director,
Urban Institute, School of Engineering, Kyushu University

Research projects and their results

The development of transportation infrastructure is a “double-edged sword” that brings economic
development but also promotes regional disparities. This study illuminates the causal relationship between
high-speed railway expansion and economic development, focusing on Japan’s Shinkansen bullet trainsfrom 1983 to 2020. The study found that a 1% increase in market access increases the land prices by 0.176%,
income by 0.425%, and income per capita by 0.023% across Japan. However, most of the economic benefits
are generated by the metropolitan areas. RIETI Senior Fellow KONDO Keisuke asked RIETI Faculty Fellow
MANAGI Shunsuke who is also a Distinguished Professor of Technology and Policy, Director of Urban Instituteat Kyushu University about this research, touching not only on the economic benefits but also the potential tolead to inclusive wealth.
A first step in the study of inclusive wealth
Kondo: First of all, could you introduce your field of expertise?
Managi: I am trying to link various fields such as urban planning,
the environment, resources and energy rather than treat them as
separate, and to view them within the framework of economics.
In the area of environmental issues, reducing air pollution is also
related to the field of health. I am also in charge of urban planningin the Department of Civil Engineering at my university, and I
feel that I am helping to connect and develop the fields of civilengineering-based urban planning and economics.
Kondo: What made you focus on high-speed railways in thisstudy?
Managi: First, I was interested in infrastructure as an area where
the economic impact has not been fully measured. For this study,
we wanted to focus on something that would have a large impact
throughout Japan from a policy perspective, so we decided tofocus on the development of the Shinkansen, Japan’s high-speed
railway (HSR) system. This is still a high-profile topic, with the
Nishi Kyushu Shinkansen being in operation and the Hokuriku
Shinkansen extending to Fukui. We see HSR as an interesting
theme in terms of infrastructure that will continue to develop

22

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

globally in the future.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism(MLIT) conducts cost–benefit analysis, which is an analysis of
the benefits and other effects in relation to the costs of a projectfrom the perspective of socio-economic efficiency, before
undertaking public works projects. But ex-post evaluation is
insufficient, and it is difficult to say that the results of past ex-post
evaluations are being used in subsequent policies. I believe that it
would be very meaningful to closely examine past public works
projects for the cost and extent of maintenance of infrastructure
after they are built, in light of geographical characteristics. In
terms of industry, if infrastructure changes the location of plants,
offices and other workplaces, it should also have an impact on
the environment and energy. For example, simply put, moreenergy is used in urban centers, but the energy efficiency percapita is better. On the other hand, there is also traffic congestion
and a higher risk of photochemical smog and air pollution. If
this is the case, health hazards are also a concern. Relief fromthese problems can be obtained by living in non-metropolitan
areas, but if the infrastructure in non-metropolitan areas is weak,other inconveniences will arise. These will be counteracted andsupported by automobiles or the Shinkansen.
On a slightly larger scale, United Nations (UN) Secretary-

Double-edged Trains: Economic outcomes and regional disparity of high-speed railways
2 2 - E- 0 6 0

YOO Sunbin (Kyushu University) / KUMAGAI Junya (Kyushu University) / KAWASAKI Kohei (Kyushu
University) / HONG Sungwan (Pennsylvania State University) / ZHANG Bingqi (Kyushu University) /SHIMAMURA Takuya (Kyushu University) / MANAGI Shunsuke (Faculty Fellow, RIETI)General António Guterres has issued a message that from now on
the value of the world and society should be measured not only bygross domestic product (GDP) but also by incorporating various
factors such as the value of nature and human happiness. To put
this into practice in actual decision-making, it is important toevaluate even detailed data and to learn what would be positiveor negative. With the Shinkansen, I would like to expand theanalysis to include the effects on well-being and air pollution,
but I think we should start at the base and examine the economic
effects of the Shinkansen itself. The purpose of this study was toaddress the economic aspect as a first step.

In this study, we estimated the economic impact of the
Shinkansen by dividing the data into four regional groups: Tokyo;
the three major metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya;
the regional medium-sized metropolitan areas of Sapporo, Sendai,
Hiroshima and Fukuoka; and other regions (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Regional categories

Kondo: Please tell us about the concept of market access, which isa key element in this study.
Managi: “Market access” is an indicator used in empirical studiesof railways in the United States, and we employed it in thisstudy as well. It is a concept that estimates the market potentialof connecting two regions with new infrastructure, looking at
how much travel time can be reduced and how many people
can newly access the market. The larger the populations of thetwo areas to be connected, the greater the market accessibility
due to the time savings. Even in areas not served by trains, it ispossible to evaluate the effect of indirect access improvements
due to the opening of a Shinkansen line in neighboring areas(Figure 1). With this indicator, we evaluated the causal effect of
infrastructure in Japan. It can also be used for wide-area urban
planning by dividing and inspecting the data by region andconsidering regional differences.
Figure 1: Market access evolution in Japan

Source: DP22-E-060 Fig. 3

Source: DP22-E-060 Fig. 4As a result, we found that a 1% increase in market access leads
to a 0.176% increase in land prices nationwide. By region, thepositive effect on land prices occurred only in Tokyo, megacities
and regional cores, whereas no positive effect occurred inrural cities. In other words, it became clear that there areregional disparities in the economic effects of Shinkansen line
development. In an unexpected finding, the positive effect waslarger in regional cores than in the central Tokyo metropolitan
area. I believe that constructive discussions can proceed only
when the characteristics of each region are shown in clear figures
such as these.

Research projects and their results

Economic impact measured by market accessKondo: Did you have any difficulties in analyzing the data?
Managi: We took long-term data covering all municipalities inJapan from 1983 to 2020, so we had a huge amount of data tohandle, but we seven authors divided the work among ourselves to
get through it. We felt that it would have been better if we had had
data from even earlier periods. It would have been ideal to havedata from the very beginning of the Shinkansen’s construction.
Nevertheless, the fact that long-term data is well maintained
and available in Japan is a strong point of Japanese government
statistics. Although the statistical surveys may decrease in the
future due to budget cuts and other factors, satellite images

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

23

RESEARCH DIGEST

Interviewer

KONDO Keisuke
Senior Fellow, RIETI/Associate
Professor, Research Institutefor Economics and Business
Administration (RIEB), Kobe University

and alternative data are becoming more accurate thanks to thedevelopment of artificial intelligence, so I hope that there will bean abundance of data that can be used for research. I also think
it is necessary to demonstrate that it is important to have data inorder to conduct ex-post evaluation and set future goals.

Research projects and their results

Kondo: How is this study different from previous studies?
Managi: There have long been studies on the economic effectsof U.S. railways and regional economic development from theperspective of logistics connecting a vast landscape. In the U.S.,
there are previous studies that have evaluated these old topics
with causality, using market access. In Japan, studies on the
Shinkansen have been conducted using quasi-experimental
methods, such as difference-in-differences (DID) analysis oftreatment and control groups. However, this is not suitable for
estimating how different the economic effects of the Shinkansen
are in each region, as the effects are expected to be felt in areas
other than those where train stations have been built. To address
this issue, market access was used as an indicator in this study.
This is the first attempt to provide quantitative measures of themarket access related to the Shinkansen in Japan, as there has
never been a study of this kind before.
In Japan, market access is not used in cost-benefit analysis, but
I hope that this approach will eventually become the standard for
how cost-benefit is viewed.
High-speed railway development is a double-edged sword
Kondo: What is your view on the conclusion of the study thathigh-speed railway development is a “double-edged sword?”
Managi: Although regional disparities are generated, the economic
effects of the Shinkansen are more positive than negative, as
seen in the benefits that were extended even to medium-sized
metropolitan areas. Although not included in the paper, if wetrack the effects from year to year, we find that in towns that canbe considered relatively medium-sized, the economic impact isalmost negligible at the beginning of the Shinkansen service, but
gradually increases due to the effects of the expanding network.

24

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

Also, the reason why the effect in the three major metropolitan
areas is lower is that each city is already established as a core
location, so while it can contribute to the surrounding areas, itdoes not generate much new positive effect in the city itself. If
greater effects are to be expected, the network as a whole must beconnected with a certain degree of density while keeping an eye
on the balance of the cities. Also, if only two connected places
undergo development and the development does not extend to thesurrounding areas, the economic effect will be small.
As we can show the economic impact of the Shinkansen
numerically, it will be useful in understanding both positive andnegative aspects and in simulating the currently planned regional
extensions of the Shinkansen and the future maglev Chuo
Shinkansen line. If there is a policy demand, we would like to link
our analysis to internal policy discussions reflecting the results. At
present, there are not many plans for the next phase of the maglev
Chuo Shinkansen once it opens. How the fares are set and how
many people it is expected to carry will greatly affect the levelof development of the surrounding cities. With this in mind, theallocation of train schedules, station locations and other factors
need to be considered. I hope that evidence-based policy making(EBPM), digital transformation (DX), green transformation (GX),
and the Vision for a Digital Garden City Nation will help people
understand the significance of using data and analysis.
Kondo: What is the main reason to focus on land prices andincome as dependent variables to measure the economic effectsof the Shinkansen?
Managi: The reason is that with land prices, we have the mostdetailed data available throughout Japan. Changes in land prices
can be said to reflect the economic effects of the Shinkansen.
We would also like to closely inspect the impact on industry,for example, but we do not have detailed industrial data, so thisstudy focused on measuring the local economic effect of the
Shinkansen using land prices as the variable.
We also found that the economic effect of the Shinkansen on
income per capita in non-metropolitan areas was negative. This isprobably because small non-metropolitan cities are often the laststops, and “spongification” (i.e., vacant lots and houses, resulting
in a porous structure like a sponge) occurs, with the Shinkansen
facilitating the outflow of people. Even if a Shinkansen line
is built to “trigger development,” the effect may actually be
negative. In a simple analysis, it is often judged as “break-even,”but I believe that the results clearly show that even if the effect of
the Shinkansen is positive across Japan on a nationwide basis, theeffect is concentrated in urban areas. And when looking only at
non-metropolitan areas, the effect is negative due to the progressof spongification.

Kondo: Do you have any advice for policymakers?
Managi: The construction of Shinkansen lines is, in reality,
heavily influenced by politics. I think the current situation is thatpoliticians make public promises to “build a Shinkansen line”
and then try to force the project through by laying out figuresthat are not well supported and claiming positive effects. Thereis a huge cost at the time of construction, but the fact that many
companies benefit from it is one of the reasons why it is possible
for the system to be established. A Shinkansen project will boost
the economy in the short term.
However, we wondered what the long-term effects are, andupon investigation, we found that, in fact, they were not all that
good in non-metropolitan areas.
If there is anything that I can suggest to the areas where the
Shinkansen line is about to be constructed, it may seem obvious,
but the closer the existing station and the Shinkansen station
are, the better. The closer they are, the more predictable thedevelopment of commercial facilities and the city will be. In
reality, however, a Shinkansen station ends up being built a little
farther away for various reasons, such as a lack of surplus land. In
this case, development cannot be achieved in the long term, andwith the station distant from other infrastructure and difficult touse, only negative aspects result, such as spongification, with nopositive effects expected.
Therefore, as is true not only in non-metropolitan areas but
also in large cities, it is difficult to generate positive effects unlesspeople make good use of areas with good accessibility. Osaka andShin-Osaka stations are also distant from each other, so that is an
issue in the area. There needs to be more exhaustive discussions
on how to connect Shinkansen and conventional lines to the next
step of development, and a structure that connects to the future
should be thought about at the level of community planning. I
think this can be done even now.
It would be easier to do if the local governments could set goals
to create that structure. It would give each party involved a reason
to start moving and enable explanation to related stakeholders.
Proposals for goals set by the administration would have to go
through regional assemblies, but at that time, the numbers from
our analysis will provide support. I think our study will lead tofurther consideration on, for example, how we can find a simple
way to connect two locations so that the regions do not become
exhausted.

Managi: Industry, including local banks, is eagerly considering
the creation of wide-area infrastructure. From their point of view,
it is natural to aim for local development, as it is the place where
they do business for survival, and with their support, the region
will develop as a result. Therefore, in non-metropolitan areas,
politics is not the only thing that determines the next direction.
Because of the cooperative relationship between local industry
and politics, people should be able to create better communities
and plans that will enable development over a wide area, based onhighly accurate data. We conducted this study using only publicly
available data, but it would be great if we could also collaborate touse data held by industry, such as telecommunications and freight
forwarding.
This study focused on the Shinkansen across Japan, but
the same logic is applicable for analyzing all transportation
infrastructure development within a region. Right now, the Vision
for a Digital Garden City Nation, DX and GX are being promoted,
and I believe it is important to include the effective use of data.
In community planning, data-driven ex-ante and ex-post
evaluations would be quite helpful in reducing costs and would
also benefit the private sector.
Kondo: Finally, what is your outlook for future research?
Managi: In this paper, I wanted to show that we can glean a
lot of information about infrastructure even from open data. I
would also like to investigate measures of well-being such as air
pollution, ease of mobility for residents, and low levels of traffic
congestion. The UN’s Inclusive Wealth Index, which I mentioned
at the beginning, is useful for measuring such values that are
not expressed in GDP. It is not limited to hard infrastructure but
also takes into account soft factors such as nature and health.
Analyzing data to show what kind of infrastructure makes people
happy could lead to new national infrastructure proposals, which
also could easily spread to non-metropolitan areas. We plan to
conduct research on how to create a structure in which companies
that can make good use of such infrastructure will benefit.

Research projects and their results

Community planning connecting the future

Kondo: It is true that economic analysis is all about measuring
GDP and economic benefits, which underestimates thesignificance of rural areas. It is important to consider what kindof infrastructure development should be promoted by the national
and local governments, with an eye to the happiness and wellbeing of the real people beyond the conventional cost-benefit
analysis. Thank you very much.

Collaborate with industry to incorporate highly accurate data
Kondo: Could you share your findings on infrastructuredevelopment?

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION25

C O L U M N

Gender Stereotypesof Politicians

ONO Yoshikuni
Faculty Fellow, RIETI

Research projects and their results

Gender Gap in Politics

A Survey with Japanese Voters

The gender gap in politics in Japan is one of the largest of alladvanced countries. The proportion of seats held by women in
the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet
(Japan’s national parliament), is 9.7%, far below the average of
25.9% among the 193 countries around the world (Note 1). Why
are women so underrepresented in the Diet? One possible reason
for the gender gap in political representation may be that genderstereotypes held by voters are putting women candidates at a
disadvantage in elections.

In order to identify the stereotypes held by Japanese voters, we
conducted an online survey with around 3,000 voters in March
2019. In the survey, the same set of questions was asked in thesame format as that used in a survey previously conducted in the
United States (Note 2) so that the tendencies among Japaneseand American voters could be compared. This article provides
a brief summary of the gender stereotypes observed among
Japanese voters with respect to policy areas and personal traits.
For information on the specifics of the survey, please refer to therelevant RIETI discussion paper (Note 3).

Gender Stereotypes
Gender Stereotypes regarding Policy Areas

Social psychology research shows that gender stereotypes
can lead to prejudice and discriminatory behavior. So, whatstereotypes do Japanese voters have with respect to men andwomen politicians?

The survey asked the respondents whether men or womenpoliticians are generally better at handling each of 11 policy areas,
requesting them to choose one of three response options: “men,”“women,” and “no gender difference.” Figure 1 shows a summaryof the results, which indicate that Japanese voters have stereotypesvery similar to those held by American voters. Specifically,

Figure 1
Child Care
Birthrate
Education
Social Welfare
Health Care
Immigration
Deficit
Crime
Economy
Diplomacy
National Security
-0.8

-0.6

-0.4

Woman

-0.2

0.0

Mean of Score
Japan

26

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

0.2

US (Dolan 2014)

0.4

0.6

Man

0.8

to that opinion or view the politician negatively because of thestereotypes. For example, if a female politician actively speaks
out or expresses an opinion in the area of national security, which
is often perceived as a “male prerogative,” voters may react withskepticism or evaluate the politician negatively.
According to the results of a survey experiment conductedby the author in 2015 with the participation of around 2,700
voters, not only do Japanese voters tend to generally prefer men
candidates over women, but also women candidates can lose votes
if they fail to conform to the stereotypes (Note 4). In other words,
while the emphasis on their gender tends to disadvantage womencandidates, failure to behave in a “feminine” manner may beperceived negatively. Therefore, women candidates are expected
to face more difficulties compared with men when considering
what electoral strategy to adopt.
The question of how gender stereotypes affect voters’ views ofpoliticians and their behavior has only just begun to be researchedboth domestically and internationally, and is not yet fully
understood. I look forward to further progress in the research, asfinding answers to this question is expected to provide clues tonarrowing the gender gap in politics.

Gender Stereotypes regarding Personal Traits
Regarding personal traits, the survey asked the respondents
whether each of 10 attributes may be better ascribed generally
to men or women politicians. Figure 2 shows the results, whichindicate a similar tendency to that observed in the UnitedStates. While Japanese voters consider men politicians to bebetter at consensus building and more decisive, have stronger
leadership, be more politically experienced and more dominant
than women politicians, they regard women politicians as being
more compassionate, honest and intelligent. However, as totrustworthiness, voters recognized little difference between men
and women politicians. (Figure 2)

Footnote(s)1. https://data.ipu.org/women-averages
2. Dolan, Kathleen A. (2014). When Does Gender Matter?:

Influence of Gender Stereotypes

Women Candidates and Gender Stereotypes in American

How do such gender stereotypes influence voting behavior?
When voters have gender stereotypes, if a man or woman
politician expresses an opinion in a policy area that is perceived
to be outside of his/her expertise, voters may react negatively

3. https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/summary/21070019.

Research projects and their results

the percentage of Japanese respondents who considered men
politicians to be better at handling policy areas such as crime/
public order, economics/employment, national security,
immigration, and fiscal deficit was higher than the percentage of
those who considered women politicians to be better at handlingthem. On the other hand, the percentage of Japanese respondents
who considered women politicians to be better at handling suchpolicy areas as education, healthcare, childcare/child welfare, theshrinking population of children, and pension/social welfare washigher than the percentage of those who considered men to bebetter at handling them. (Figure 1)

Elections. Oxford University Press, USA.
html
4. https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/summary/18060006.
html

Figure 2
Compassion
HonestIntelligent
Trust
Competent
Consensus Bulding
Decisive
Leadership
Political Experience
Dominate
-0.8

-0.6

-0.4

Woman

-0.2

0.0

Mean of Score
Japan

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Man

US (Dolan 2014)

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION27

C O L U M N

Social Pressure in Football
Matches: An event study of‘remote matches’ in Japan

MORITA Hiroshi

ARAKI Shota

Associate Professor,

Fellow, RIETI (Policy

Hosei University

Economist)

Our behaviors are highly influenced by social pressure. This column takes as a natural experiment the 2020
season of the Japanese professional football league, which held matches without spectators due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, to examine whether the presence of spectators puts pressure on referees’ decisions.
The authors find that the home team advantage is real: the number of fouls decided against the home teamdecreased significantly in matches with spectators. The absolute number of home-team supporters mattered.

Research projects and their results

Our behaviors are highly influenced by social pressure. For
instance, amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan, many people
stayed at home and wore face masks, following the government’s‘requests’ even though they were not legally binding. Suchbehaviors may be partially caused by social pressure in addition
to the primary purpose of infection prevention.
The relationship between social pressure and people’s behavior
has been one of the main concerns in economics since thepioneering work by Akerlof (1980). One strand of the literature
has analyzed this relationship by focusing on the presenceof spectators and match outcomes in professional sports (e.g.
Endrich and Gesche 2020, Bryson et al. 2021, Scoppa 2021).
We follow this literature (Morita and Araki 2021) and take as anatural experiment the 2020 season of a Japanese professional
football league, which was unexpectedly forced into holding
matches without spectators due to the COVID-19 pandemic, toexamine whether the presence of spectators puts pressure onreferees’ decisions.

‘Remote matches’ in Japan
In Japan, a match with no spectators due to the pandemic iscalled a ‘remote match.’ The 2020 season started on February 21
and only the first period of the season was held as usual. After the
first period, the season was suspended until June due to the spreadof COVID-19. Matches resumed on July 4 for the first division(J1 league) and June 27 for the second division (J2 league) but
were held with no spectators, and the situation continued in thenext period in early July. As a result, 43 out of 768 games (5.6%of all games) were played as remote matches. This meant that –based on the 2019 season – an average of 21,000 spectators per

28

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

match in J1 and 7,000 spectators per match in J2 were removed
from the stadium during this period. By taking advantage ofthis unprecedented situation, we analyze whether the referees’
decisions, such as on fouls and yellow cards, are affected by thesocial pressure of spectators.

Table 1 Timeline of restrictions on spectators
PeriodDate

Usual Period

Feb21-Feb25

Event

Feb21

Opening day of 2020 Season

Feb21,22,23

1st section held without any
attendance limit.

Suspended Period

Feb25-Jun26

The season was suspended for
pandemic.

Remote Match Period

Jun26-Jul9

J1 and J2 League resumed as“Remote Match”

Relaxation Period

Jul10-Dec20

Step 1

Jul10-Sep30

The attendance limit was set at 30%of the stadium capacity or 5000,
whichever is lager

Step 2Oct1-Oct30

Transition Period for Step 3.

Oct30-Dec20

The attendance limit was relaxed to
50% of the stadium capacity.
The away team supporters could
mobilize to the stadium.

Dec20

2020 Season close.

Step 3After 10 July 2020, the restriction on the number of spectators
was relaxed in stages depending on the infection situation, as
shown in Table 1. Broadly speaking, two periods after resuming
matches were held completely as remote matches, and then forReferee bias
We use difference-in-differences to estimate the impact ofhome-team supporters on the referees’ decisions. This method
emphasizes the benefits to the home team – in the form of refereedecision-making – arising from the presence of home-team
supporters. It captures the difference between the difference
in referees’ decisions for the home team and away team duringmatches (i) without spectators and (ii) with spectators (Figure 1).
The analysis reveals that the number of fouls decided against
the home team in matches with spectators decreased significantly,
by about 1.05, indicating that the home-team advantage isstatistically significant although its magnitude is small. On theother hand, the number of yellow cards received by the hometeam was unaffected. Moreover, the importance of the absolute
number of home-team supporters was evident based on thestadium capacity restrictions: we observed significant home-team advantages in the referees’ decisions when the matches wereplayed under the relatively lax restriction on the audience cap,with the away-team supporters. However, only about 1.38 fouls
were detected as the advantage in the referees’ decisions to thehome team.

Conclusion
We examined the impact of social pressure on humanbehaviors by exploiting the natural experiment of professional
football league matches with no spectators under the COVID-19
pandemic. Relying on information about detailed differences inspectator restrictions, we extracted the restrictions’ effects with areliable identification strategy. Our work is an empirical analysis
that supports the classic economic theory of social behaviors,
which represents an uninterrupted line of literature from thepioneering work of Akerlof (1980).
The power of social pressure is not particular to the referees’
decisions in sports matches: it can also apply to peer pressure
under the COVID-19 pandemic that forces people to wear facemasks and refrain from going out. Therefore, it is desirable tocontinue to clarify the relationship between social pressure andpeople’s behavior through the assessment of such events.
Editor’s note: The main research on which this column is based(Morita and Araki 2021) first appeared as a Discussion Paper ofthe Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) of

Research projects and their results

a while, only home-team supporters were allowed to watch thegames in the stadiums under a tight attendance cap (step 1). Aftera transition period, away-team supporters were also allowed toenter stadiums and the attendance limit was further relaxed (steps
2 and 3).
In summary, during the first step, the number of spectators
was small but the stadium was filled 100% with home-team
supporters. In contrast, during the second and third steps,
the absolute number of home-team supporters in the stadiumincreased but their ratio was decreasing due to the mobilizationof away-team supporters. We focus on the differences in thelimitation of spectators and identify whether the referees
exhibited bias and whether the source of any such bias is theabsolute number of home-team supporters or the proportion.

Japan.

This article first appeared on www.VoxEU.org on June 26,
2022. Reproduced with permission.

Figure 1 Difference-in-differences# of Fouls

Home’

Home

( i ) - ( ii )Home
( ii )
(i)

Away

Away

w/o spectators

w/ . spectators

Notes: This figure graphically shows the difference in differences estimation. Difference (i) corresponds to the difference in the number of fouls forhome versus away teams in matches without spectators, while difference (ii) corresponds to the difference in the matches with spectators. Ourinterest is in the difference-in-differences, corresponding to (i)-(ii).

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

29

RIETI’S FIFTH MEDIUM-TERM PLAN
FY2020 to FY2023

Research projects and their results

In the Fifth Medium-term Plan period, RIETI will add research on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the
behavioral economics approach, which has been gaining popularity and credibility, to the AI-related research (e.g.,using AI to analyze corporate performance and consumer behavior) it has promoted to date. The scope of this researchcreates opportunities for the participation of researchers in science disciplines outside economics and will graduallyenable the establishment of a system that allows for integration of the humanities and sciences, including linkages
between research in multiple disciplines and social science/economics. Additionally, RIETI will promote research on
evidence-based policy making (EBPM), which is expected to become increasingly important in the future, to contributeto developing solutions to increasingly diverse and complex economic and social issues toward the formulation of
economic and industrial policies.
Guided by medium- and long-term policy directions from the government, including its economic and industrial
policies, RIETI will continue to engage in research activities while working with experts in other areas to initiate
integration between the humanities and sciences including linkages between research in multiple external disciplines
and social science/economics. In doing so, it will contribute to an evidence-driven transformation of economics andsocial systems.

Research Programs

I

II

III

Ⅳ

Ⅴ

Ⅵ

Ⅶ

Ⅷ

Ⅸ

Macroeconomy
and Low
Birthrate/Aging
Population

International
Trade andInvestment

Regional
Economics

Innovation

Industry
Frontiers

Raising Industrial
and Firm
Productivity

Human Capital

Integrated
Research

PolicyAssessment

Research Process
RIETI provides forums for discussion (e.g., brainstorming workshops and discussion paper/policy discussion paper seminars) andinvites policymakers to these forums to improve the quality of our research and to build linkages between our research and future
policies.

Brainstorming Workshops(BSWS)
Launching of new research projects

30

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

Discussion Paper (DP) /Policy Discussion Paper (PDP)
Seminars

Symposiums, Workshops,
Seminars, Publication of DPs
and PDPs, Book Publication

Deepening the analysis of individual papers

Dissemination of research findings

Introduction of the Nine Research Programs
Program I

Macroeconomy and Low Birthrate/Aging Population

Program Director: KOBAYASHI Keiichiro
Faculty Fellow, RIETI / Professor, Faculty of Economics, Keio University / Research Director, The
Canon Institute for Global Studies / Research Director, The Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research

Sustaining long-term growth is a common challenge for the global economy; however, Japan isfacing a rapidly declining birthrate and aging population ahead of other countries. We will conduct
research that will contribute to policy recommendations to help maintain the economic vitality ofJapan and contribute to the future development of the global economy. Specifically, we will analyze the role of supply chains within
and between industries in the Asian region, the trends in international finance and the global economy, and the mechanisms behindprolonged economic stagnation. In addition, we will engage in multifaceted, integrated research to analyze comprehensive panel data
for the elderly, the direction of reform for the integration of social security and tax/fiscal policies, and policy recommendations for
economic change and the transformation in the industrial structure caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Macroeconomic Policy and Political Philosophy toward Economic Growth
Project Leader: KOBAYASHI Keiichiro (Faculty Fellow)

Exchange Rates and International Currency
Project Leader: OGAWA Eiji (Faculty Fellow)

East Asian Production Networks, Trade, Exchange Rates, and Global
Imbalances
Project Leader: Willem THORBECKE (Senior Fellow)

Macroeconomy and Automation
Project Leader: FUJIWARA Ippei (Faculty Fellow)

Macroeconomic and Social Security Policies under Demographic Aging:
Dynamics of firms, individuals and inequality
Project Leader: KITAO Sagiri (Senior Fellow)

Program II

Firm Dynamics and Aggregate Fluctuations
Project Leader: SENGA Tatsuro (Fellow)

International Trade and Investment

Research projects and their results

Active Projects

Program Director: TOMIURA Eiichi
Faculty Fellow, RIETI / Professor, Faculty of Economics, Hitotsubashi University

Formulating economic and industrial policies requires a deep understanding of domestic and overseas
economies; however, research on the international economy has become even more significant as
globalization intensifies. Amidst the increasing global uncertainty related to trade and investment, it isnecessary to address policy concerns and understand long-term trends. Thus, we will empirically analyze international trade, foreign
direct investment, and various other international economic activities in the real economy using a variety of data, including microdata
from government statistics and our own surveys. We will also examine topics such as Japan’s external economic policy, trade policies
in other nations, rules on international trade, and the global activities of firms from both legal and economic perspectives.

Active Projects
Empirical Analysis of Firms amidst Globalization, Digitization and the
COVID-19 Pandemic
Project Leader: TOMIURA Eiichi (Faculty Fellow)

Comprehensive Research on the Current International Trade/Investment
System (pt.Vl)
Project Leader: KAWASE Tsuyoshi (Faculty Fellow)

Studies on Foreign Direct Investment and Multinationals: Impediments,
policy shocks, and economic impacts
Project Leader: JINJI Naoto (Faculty Fellow)

Structural Changes in the World Economy and Responses from JapaneseFirms and the Government
Project Leader: URATA Shujiro (Chairman, RIETI)

Empirical Studies on Crises and Issues in Global Supply Chains
Project Leader: ZHANG Hongyong (Senior Fellow)

Economic Policy Issues in the Global Economy
Project Leader: ISHIKAWA Jota (Faculty Fellow)

Restructuring the International Trade Law System Based on Sustainability
Project Leader: NAKAGAWA Junji (Faculty Fellow)

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

31

Program III

Regional Economies

Program Director: HAMAGUCHI Nobuaki
Faculty Fellow, RIETI / Professor, Research Institute for Economics and Business
Administration (RIEB), Kobe University

We will systematically organize place-based policies (PBPs) that take the uniqueness of each
locale into consideration. For large cities, which are expected to take a leading role in innovationand international competition, we will identify both the infrastructure that utilizes the economic
advantages of agglomeration while curbing the harmful effects caused by congestion and the methods of assisting economic actors.
For non-metropolitan regions, we will identify the network and community structures and system designs that will promote structuraltransformation toward production activities that will generate high-added value via the innovative and sustainable use of eachregion’s locally-specific resources. We will also study policy measures that can optimize the balance between large cities and nonmetropolitan regions.

Active Projects

Research projects and their results

Economic Policy for Post COVID-19 Japanese Regional Economies
Project Leader: HAMAGUCHI Nobuaki (Faculty Fellow)
Verification of Regional Revitalization and Regional and Urban Economies
after the Coronavirus Pandemic
Project Leader: NAKAMURA Ryohei (Faculty Fellow)

Development of Quantitative Framework for Regional Economy Based on
the Theory of Economic Agglomeration
Project Leader: MORI Tomoya (Faculty Fellow)
Evidence-Based Policy Making for Regional Revitalization
Project Leader: KONDO Keisuke (Senior Fellow)

Geography, Inter-Firm Network and Socio-Economic Structural Change
Project Leader: SAITO Yukiko (Senior Fellow)

Program IV

Innovation

Program Director: NAGAOKA Sadao
Faculty Fellow, RIETI / Professor, Tokyo Keizai University

The creation of new knowledge and its exploitation for solving economic or non-economic problems
are the foundations for innovations, including the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We will develop
original data that will allow us to understand this process, conduct cutting-edge research using
these data, and perform analyses that will contribute to the formulation of policies for accelerating innovation. Specifically, we will
examine the innovation capability of industries, mechanism of the development of an innovation-enhancing industrial organizationalchanges, such as vertical specialization, government policies that support research and development (R&D), including the intellectual
property regime and setting of technological standards and industry-academic collaboration. We will undertake research from aninternational perspective that will include international comparisons of innovation performance.

Active Projects
Assessment of the Innovation Capability of JapaneseIndustry from an International Perspective
Project Leader: NAGAOKA Sadao (Faculty Fellow)
Penetration of Quantitative Performance Indicators of the Impact of“Design” on Organization Management
Project Leader: WASHIDA Yuichi (Faculty Fellow)

32

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

Research on Innovation Ecosystem Formation Processes
Project Leader: MOTOHASHI Kazuyuki (Faculty Fellow)
Innovation, Knowledge Creation and Macroeconomy
Project Leader: NIREI Makoto (Faculty Fellow)

Program V

Industry Frontiers

Program Director: OHASHI Hiroshi
Faculty Fellow, RIETI / Vice President, Professor, Graduate School of Public Policy,
The University of Tokyo / Professor, Faculty of Economics, The University of TokyoAs the public implementation of digital technology occurs and the integration of digital and real space
gradually becomes a reality, it is necessary to redesign Japan’s socioeconomic system and create newindustrial frontiers in order to effectively incorporate technological progress. We are entering an era
in which various economic activities are merged around data. In this context, we will study the nature of the policies for overcoming
the challenges that Japan’s economy faces by considering not only the traditional industry-specific policies but also cross-industrial
policies.

Globalization, Innovation, and Competition Policy
Project Leader: KAWAHAMA Noboru (Faculty Fellow)

Heterogeneity across Agents and Sustainability of the Japanese Economy
Project Leader: YOSHIKAWA Hiroshi (Faculty Fellow)

New Indicator Development and Economic Analysis using Big Data:
Service industries
Project Leader: KONISHI Yoko (Senior Fellow)

Institutional Design to Achieve a Society of Well-being
Project Leader: MANAGI Shunsuke (Faculty Fellow)

Study Group on Corporate Finance and Firm Dynamics
Project Leader: UESUGI Iichiro (Faculty Fellow)

Program VI

Raising Industrial and Firm Productivity

Research projects and their results

Active Projects

Program Director: FUKAO Kyoji
Faculty Fellow, RIETI / University Professor, IER, Hitotsubashi University /Professor Emeritus, Hitotsubashi University / President, Institute of Developing Economies,
Japan External Trade Organization

Since the 1990s, Japan has fallen behind other developed countries, such as the United States, theUnited Kingdom, and Germany, by a large margin in terms of its gross domestic product per capita
and the increase in its real wage rate. The main factors causing this include the stagnation of the totalfactor productivity (TFP) and the significant slowdown in capital stock accumulation, including intangible assets and information andcommunications technology (ICT) particularly since the mid-2000s. This program will update and develop databases concerning theindustry-level productivity and factor inputs in Japan and China (Japan Industrial Productivity [JIP] Database and China Industrial
Productivity [CIP] Database) and the Regional-Level Japan Industrial Productivity (R-JIP) Database, which measures the TFP foreach industry by prefecture. The program will also examine the types of policies required to improve productivity and facilitate
investment via empirical analyses using these databases and firm/business-level data.

Active Projects
East Asian Industrial Productivity
Project Leader: FUKAO Kyoji (Faculty Fellow)

Human Capital (Education·Health) Investment and Productivity
Project Leader: INUI Tomohiko (Faculty Fellow)

Capital Accumulation and Productivity Growth after the COVID-19 Crisis
Project Leader: MIYAGAWA Tsutomu (Faculty Fellow)

Firm Dynamics, Industry, and Macroeconomy
HOSONO Kaoru (Faculty Fellow)

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

33

Program VII

Human Capital

Program Director: TSURU Kotaro
Faculty Fellow, RIETI / Professor, Graduate School of Business & Commerce, Keio
University

It is expected that our society and economy will be significantly transformed by the current decreasein population caused by the rapid acceleration of population aging, the intensification of global
competition, and new technologies such as information and communication technology (ICT) andartificial intelligence (AI). Therefore, for resource-poor Japan to maintain and strengthen its economic vitality and innovation anddrive its growth potential while leveraging its strengths, the utilization of human resources will be of critical importance. We will
undertake multifaceted and comprehensive research on the redesigning of employment/labor systems suitable for the age of AI, thedevelopment of capacity/skills to complement AI, the required reforms in education/training for such purposes, and the ideal methodsof improving the well-being of workers, such as health management. Greater use will be made of original datasets.

Active Projects

Research projects and their results

Employment and Educational Reform in the AI era
Project Leader: TSURU Kotaro (Faculty Fellow)

Fundamental Research for Restoring Vitality and Improving Productivity
in the Japanese Economy and Society
Project Leader: NISHIMURA Kazuo (Faculty Fellow)

Empirical Studies on Issues of Foreign Employment and Technology
Progress in a Society with a Persistent Labor Shortage
Project Leader: LIU Yang (Fellow)

Wage Inequality and Industrial Dynamics
Project Leader: KAMBAYASHI Ryo (Faculty Fellow)

Productivity Effects of HRM Policies and Management Quality
Project Leader: OWAN Hideo (Faculty Fellow)

Research on Diverse Work Styles, Health and Productivity
Project Leader: KURODA Sachiko (Faculty Fellow)

Economic Analysis on the Problem of an Aging Population anda Declining Birthrate in China and Japan in the COVID-19 Pandemic
Project Leader: YIN Ting (Fellow)

Program VIII

Integrated Research

One of the major issues afflicting the Japanese economy is the existence of barriers, such as the barriers between
permanent and non-permanent employees and between men and women in the workplace. RIETI has beenaddressing various problems concerning these barriers in the economy. Academia has also been suffering from thisproblem of barriers, for example, barriers between humanities and sciences, between legal studies and economics,
between microeconomics and macroeconomics, and between theory and empirical testing. It is essential to remove
these barriers to increase the capacity for innovation and enable organizations to become more sophisticated. The
Integrated Research program uses this perspective to undertake research and incorporate new knowledge fromother disciplines, such as natural sciences, law, political science, and sociology, into economics and policy studies.

Active Projects
Toward Building Socio-Life Science
Project Leader: HIROTA Shigeru (Faculty Fellow)
Basic Research for Exploring the Ideal Medical Intervention after the
Advent of the New Coronavirus
Project Leader: SEKIZAWA Yoichi (Senior Fellow)

34

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

Advanced Technology and Democracy: Does new technology help or hurt
democracy?
Project Leader: ONO Yoshikuni (Faculty Fellow)
Frontiers in Corporate Governance Analysis
Project Leader: MIYAJIMA Hideaki (Faculty Fellow)

Program IX

Policy Assessment

Program Director: KAWAGUCHI Daiji
Faculty Fellow, RIETI / Professor, Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo /Graduate School of Public Policy

The Policy Assessment program will accelerate Evidence-Based Policy Making (EBPM) by
simultaneously researching the ideal form of EBPM and evaluating individual policies. Regarding
the research on the nature of EBPM, we will employ a meta perspective to analyze how policymakers
should prepare evidence and formulate policies based on such evidence, as well as the extent to which EBPM is practiced. Regarding
the evaluation of individual policies, the program will use high-quality microdata and empirical microeconomic techniques toprovide credible evidence to contribute to policy making in education, labor, tax, social security, and other areas.

Empirical Analysis on Japanese Labor Market
Project Leader: KAWAGUCHI Daiji (Faculty Fellow)

Analysis on Policies to Improve Firm Productivity: The Case of Lao Textile
industry and initial analysis on Japanese firms’ foreign study tours
Project Leader: TANAKA Mari (Faculty Fellow)

Comprehensive Research on Evidence Based Policy Making (EBPM)
Project Leader: SEKIZAWA Yoichi (Senior Fellow)

Future Challenge and Empirical Analysis of Corporate Taxation
Project Leader: SATO Motohiro (Faculty Fellow)

Implementing Evidence-Based Policy Making in Japan
Project Leader: OHTAKE Fumio (Faculty Fellow)
Evaluation of the Effects of Institutional and Environmental Factors on
Family Formation, Parental Labor Market Performance and Children’s
Academic Performance
Project Leader: KONDO Ayako (Faculty Fellow)

Research projects and their results

Active Projects

Special Projects
Active Projects
RIETI Data Management Project
Project Leader: SEKIGUCHI Yoichi (Senior Fellow)

Historical Evaluation of Industrial Policy
Project Leader: OKAZAKI Tetsuji (Faculty Fellow)

Studies on Transformations of International Systems and their Impact on
Japan’s Mid- & Long-term CompetitivenessProject Leader: WATANABE Tetsuya (Former Vice President,
RIETI)The Policy-Making Process of the Industrial Competitiveness Policies inJapan
Project Leader: WATANABE Junko (Faculty Fellow)

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

35

RIETI Activities

I nt ern ation al In sti t ut iwith RI E T I
6
12

8

13
20

11

1

7

E URO PE

3
2
4

15

10

5

16

A S IA

9
14

EUROPE
Activities

United Kingdom
❶

18
❽

17

Kiel Institute for the World Economy

Centre for Economic Policy Research(CEPR) London office

19

Italy

Chatham House❾COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium

European University Institute23(COG-UK)❷Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Switzerland❿

Graduate Institute, Geneva
University of St. Gallen

21❸
Durham University

Netherlands

22

⓫
❹

Clingendael Institute

University of Sussex

Utrecht University School of Economics

FranceBelgium

Banque de France

BruegelCenter for Economic Policy Research

European Commission (EC)

(CEPR) Paris office

European Corporate Governance InstituteFondation France-Japon de l’EHESS(ECGI)❺

24

OC EA N IA⓬

25

Institut national de la santé et de larecherche médicale (INSERM), Creme3

SwedenInstitut Pasteur⓭

Organisation for Economic Co-operation

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), University

and Development (OECD)of Gothenburg

Germany

TurkeyOCEANIA
Australia❻⓮

IZA Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Economic Policy Research Foundation ofGerman Development InstituteTurkey❼Russia㉔
Australian National University

36

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik⓯㉕

Institut für Mittelstandsforschung

New Economic School

University of Adelaide

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

on s th at C olla b orate din 2022

N OR TH A MER IC A
32

26

29

33

28

30

27
34

Activities

31

NORTH AMERICA
United States of America㉘㉖

Syracuse University

Council on Foreign Relations

ASIA

(CFR)
Asia Society Policy Institute㉙
Yale University

Republic of Korea

Singapore(Washington, D.C. Office)⓰㉑

Brookings Institution

Korea Institute for Industrial

Asian Trade Centre

Georgetown University

Economics and Trade (KIET)

Asia-Pacific Economic

George Washington University㉛
University of Chicago㉚
Harvard University

35

Cooperation (APEC)

German Marshall Fund of the

TaiwanSecretariat

United States⓱

ISEAS –Yusof Ishak InstituteInternational Food Policy

Taiwan Institute of Economic

Middle East Institute, National

Research InstituteResearch (TIER)

University of Singapore

International Monetary Fund (IMF)㉝

Peterson Institute for International

University of California San Diego

36

37

㉜
Portland State University

China

Indonesia⓲㉒

Institute of Japanese Studies,

Economic Research Institute㉗

Chinese Academy of Socialfor ASEAN and East Asia

Johns Hopkins University

Sciences (IJS, CASS)(ERIA)

Peking University

Indonesia Research Institute

Tsinghua University

for Decarbonization (IRID)

University of International

University of Indonesia

SOUTH AMERICA

India

BrazilArgentina㉟㊲

Fundação Dom Cabral

Escuela Argentina de Negocios

38

Economics

Canada㉞
Centre for International
Governance Innovation

Business and Economics⓳㉓

Asia Global InstituteCentre for Policy Research
Research and Information

Mongolia

System for Developing

㊱

㊳

⓴

Countries

Centro de Estudos de Integração

Universidad Nacional de La Plata

The Mongolian Nationale Desenvolvimento

Development Agency (NDA)

BRICS Policy Center*Institutions in blue are institutions with which RIETI has signed Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) to date.

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

37

RIETI Activities

V ISITO RS to

RI E T I
Activities
With the significant relaxation of border control measures on entry into Japan in October
2022 and the state funeral of the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, RIETI has been
visited by a number of foreign dignitaries, resulting in the first face-to-face discussions ina long time. The following is a list of visitors to RIETI:

September 27, 2022

38

September 29, 2022

H.E. Mr. Jan SKOPEČEK (Member of the Chamber ofDr. Rebecca Fatima STA MARIA (Executive Director,

Deputies of the Parliament) of the Czech Republic

APEC Secretariat)

There are 300 Japanese companies operating in the Czech Republic,
and the visit was made with the expectation of strengthening ties withJapan in the future.
The country also held the EU Presidency for July-December 2022,
making it a timely opportunity to strengthen relations.

During her visit to Japan to attend the state funeral of former Prime
Minister Abe, Dr. Sta Maria paid a courtesy call on Chairman Yano.

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

October 6, 2022

October 18, 2022

Mr. Stephen QUEST (Director-General of the Joint

Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy SelectResearch Centre, EU)

Committee, the House of Commons, UK

The Joint Research Centre is the European Commission’s scienceand knowledge service think tank, which provides evidence-based
scientific support to the European policy making process. The visit
was a made with a desire to establish a working relationship withRIETI.

The visit was requested to discuss the most recent economic andlabor situations in Japan. They expressed interest in a wide rangeof topics including corporate governance, security, government
debt, employment of the elderly, use of AI, immigration issues, andwomen’s labor issues.

November 15, 2022

Activities

October 25, 2022

H.E. Dr. Ashurboy SOLEHZODA, First Deputy Minister ofProfessor Beatrice WEDER di MAURO (President,

Economic Development and Trade of the Republic of Tajikistan

CEPR)

Since an economic research institute was very recently establishedwithin the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, to which hebelongs, he expressed interest in RIETI’s experience and knowledge,
and the visit was made with the expectation of building a cooperative
relationship in the future.

RIETI and CEPR have a long-standing cooperative relationship,including mutual publication of columns and co-hosting of events.
Information was exchanged on CEPR’s recent activities and thecurrent situation in Europe.

November 25, 2022

December 20, 2022

Mr. Andrew WYCKOFF (Director for Science,

Dr. Richard BALDWIN (Professor of International Economics

Technology and Innovation, OECD)at the Graduate Institute, Geneva; Founder & Editor-in-Chief

Mr. Wyckoff, who has been a speaker at three RIETI seminars in thepast, came to Japan to discuss future cooperation between the OECDand RIETI, including the deep connection between RIETI’s research
projects and OECD’s research themes.

of VoxEU.org; Former President of the CEPR)
During his visit to Japan, he engaged in a discussion regarding
RIETI-CEPR co-sponsored events scheduled for March and April
2023 and presented his latest research.

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

39

RIETI Activities

Speaker: Peter TAN(Ambassador of the Republic ofSingapore to Japan)

including the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), theComprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership(CPTPP), and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). We welcome
efforts by Japan to strengthen engagement with ASEAN in line with theASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Singapore and Japan have been
cooperating very closely to navigate the challenges. When countries started to
shut borders following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, there wereconcerns that the supply of essential goods would be affected. Singapore’s
Ministry of Trade and Industry then held discussions with Japan’s Ministryof Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) to release a joint statement onfacilitating resilient economic activities for combating the COVID-19
pandemic in May 2020. This statement expressed our shared commitment
to maintaining supply chain connectivity, showed concerns on the scarcity
of goods in Singapore, and reinforced Japan’s reputation as a trusted andimportant partner. Both countries also work closely on vaccine multilateralismwith other partners through the COVID Vaccine Global Access (COVAX)
facility. Singapore and Japan also launched the Business Track/Reciprocal
Green Lane and Residence Track in September 2020 as both sides saw theneed to maintain economic activities to keep our partners and businesses
going. Singapore was the first country with which Japan established theReciprocal Green Lane, reflecting our close and strong economic and personalties and the high level of trust that we have in each other.

The Relationship between Japan and Singapore
Singapore is a relatively young nation, gaining independence in 1965.
Singapore is about 710 square kilometers and lacks natural resources. The
development of Singapore since 1965 owes much to the support of foreign
friends and partners, such as Japan. Japanese companies invested in Singapore
during the 1970s and 1980s. Singapore has also learned much from the bestpractices of Japan, such as improving productivity and quality standards.
Also, Singapore has a network of neighborhood police posts based on Japan’ssystem. In our earlier industrialization period, we learned a lot from Japan.
The foundations of our friendship with Japan were led by Singapore’s
founding prime minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. He visited Japan regularly andhad forged very close ties with Japanese leaders. Subsequent prime ministers,
Mr. Goh Chok Tong and Mr. Lee Hsien Loong have built on this foundation
to strengthen the bilateral relationship between Singapore and Japan.
The frequent visits between the prime minister of Singapore and Japan,
including many other ministerial and official delegations, highlight how
our friendship has grown over the past decades. A key pillar of our bilateralrelations is our strong economic cooperation. Singapore and Japan ranked
among each other’s top trading partners with bilateral trade standing at close to
6 trillion yen in 2021, which was nearly a 9% increase from 2020. Singapore
is Japan’s second largest investment destination in Asia, and Singapore isalso Japan’s top Asian investor. We host over 5,000 Japanese companies, anumber of which have set up their Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore.
Many companies also use Singapore as a base for innovation, talent, andleadership development. Singapore and Japan also share common interests inmaintaining regional peace and stability and upholding an open and inclusive
regional architecture. We have joined hands on many multilateral initiatives

Future Areas of Cooperation
In the future, there will be many opportunities for cooperation. With our
excellent relations, our shared commitment, and convergence of views,
there is much more we can do together, specifically in three specific areas.
The first area is digital cooperation. Digitalization has already been rapidlytransforming the economic landscape in Asia and the world; it has disrupted
the traditional models of commerce and how companies conduct businesses.
The pandemic has made our reliance on digital platforms more pronounced;
it has become a catalyst and made us go online, voluntarily or otherwise. The
future lies in the adoption of digital tools, and we need to develop common
frameworks and global standards to ensure that cross-border transactions anddata flows are kept safe, secure, and efficient.
In May of this year, the two prime ministers witnessed the signingof memorandums of understanding (MOUs) on digital governmenttransformation, and startup and innovation. We also welcomed theestablishment of the Singapore-Japan Economic Dialogue, which will
facilitate exchanges on green economy and digitalization. There is muchscope for Japan and Singapore to work on regarding Japan’s Digital Garden
City Initiative and Singapore’s Smart Nation Initiative.
The second area is green cooperation. In Singapore, we launched our Green
Plan 2030 to make a strong push for sustainable development, and Japanplans to be net carbon neutral by 2050. In this space, we have very aligned
interests and a convergence of views, and Singapore and Japan can build on
our common stake for a more sustainable future.
We signed a memorandum of cooperation on low emission solutions inJanuary this year when then-METI Minister Hagiuda visited Singapore. Suchcooperation will help foster closer partnerships in areas including long-termemissions reduction strategies and pathways, including green technology andgreen finance.
The third area is infrastructure cooperation. One of Singapore’s government
agencies, Infrastructure Asia and Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,
Transport and Tourism (MLIT) signed a memorandum of understanding on
March 5, 2021, to promote cooperation between Japan and Singapore-based
companies on regional infrastructure projects.

ot h e r major events

202 2
September 14, 2022

BBL Webinar“The Future of Japan andSingapore”

Activities
40

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

June 10, 2022

IEA-METI-RIETI Conference“New Thinking on Industrial
Policy”
Keynote Speech: The role ofindustrial policy in the new era
Speaker: Joseph STIGLITZ(Columbia University)

every government action helps shape the economy to have a democratic
discussion about where the economy and the society is going.
2) We need to keep in mind both social objectives (e.g. climate change,
equality and resilience) and market failures (e.g. failures in capital market,
widespread racial and gender discrimination in many societies). Borders domatter as well; while we have created a view after WWII that we should beworking and striving for a borderless world, and economic policy was often
based on the notion that we were about to achieve a borderless world, we
began to realize that the borders do matter (e.g. actions by President Trump,vaccine nationalism, export restraints under food crisis).
3) An industrial policy program has to focus on addressing double or triple
duties. With limited resources and instruments, policies need to address
as many of social objectives as possible. It is pleasing that the Biden
administration is pursuing industrial policy with discrimination inequality
and green transition in consideration.
4) Opposition to industrial policy is not based on economics but is based moreon political economy and imperfections of information. Governments havemade a difference (e.g. U.S. agricultural programs in the 19th century,
DARPA and the Internet in the 20th century). The East Asian miracle
showed unambiguously that the government industrial policies have madea difference. In terms of institutional design that reduces the likelihood of
failures, one distinct source of success by East Asian economies is accessto credit versus giving away free money. Transparency, peer review,
engagement of civil society can mitigate political economy risks.

Activities

One of the successful cooperation projects that is currently being done isin the Philippines, New Clark City, which shows cooperation on developing
smart city infrastructure in Southeast Asia. It is a project that had Singapore
and Japan work together in the area of infrastructure cooperation to provide
infrastructure solutions in the Philippines. As the Southeast Asia region looks
towards post-COVID-19 recovery, there will be opportunities for Singapore
and Japan to work together in this sector.
The friendship between Singapore and Japan has indeed flourished overthe past five and a half decades. Now, the people-to-people ties are strong.
Through visiting each other’s countries pre-COVID-19 and interaction among
the citizens, trust and understanding has been enhanced. There is the potential
for us to do much more, and much will depend on the people, companies, andgovernments of both sides to pursue a common interest and path to enhance
our livelihoods.

November 29, 2022

RIETI-OECD Seminar“Confronting the Crisis OECD Economic Outlook
November 2022”
Professor Stiglitz noted a confluence of factors, including financial crisis,climate crisis, inequality, Covid-19, and the war in Ukraine, behind industrial
policy taking a center stage once again. Professor Stiglitz stressed that market
alone do not suffice systematic failures, and governments can improve mattersby government-designed economic strategy, and cited that the systemic shortsightedness to risk is evidenced most strikingly by an European country which
made itself significantly dependent on Russian gas.
Professor Stiglitz recalled oppositions from many advanced countries andfrom within the World Bank on his project on the East Asian miracle in thelast 1980s’-early 1990s’, a World Bank project with support from Japan. His
observation is that what was behind these opposition was unwillingness toseek for an alternative to the Washington Consensus, and industrial policy has
discredited not by experience or theory, but by ideological hostility towardindustrial policy, a view that is widely rejected today.
Professor Stiglitz raised following four reflections on industrial policy.
1) All countries do have industrial policy in reality. Support for expansion ofderivatives, policies embedded in the Defense Department, policies thatencouraged de-industrialization are the industrial policy in the U.S. Policies,
expenditures, and taxes all shape the economy, and being conscious on

Speaker: Muge Adalet McGOWAN (Deputy Head of Division/
Senior Economist, Country Studies - Desk Japan/Ireland,
Economics Department, OECD), OGURO Kei (Economist,
Economics Department, OECD)
This presentation addresses/discusses the OECD’s latest Economic
Outlook announced on 22 November, 2022, which shows that the global
economy is expected to slow further in the coming year as the massive
and historic energy shock triggered by Russia’s war of aggression against
Ukraine continues to spur inflationary pressures, sapping confidence
and household purchasing power and increasing risks worldwide.
The presentation will also cover Japan’s economic forecast, as well as
policy recommendations such as accelerating structural reforms to boost
productivity and wages, improving fiscal sustainability and sustainable

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

41

RIETI Activities
growth, and continuing to communicate current and future monetary stanceclearly and timely.

November 22, 2022

BBL Webinar“Voice Through Divestment”
Speaker: Marco BECHT(Professor, Free University ofBrussels / ECGI)Longstanding ties between Hawaii and Japan create ideal conditions forsocio-economic innovation. This presentation will share a new program,supported by Keidanren and The Council for Better Corporate Citizenship(CBCC), to leverage these strong relationships through public private
partnerships. Hawaii and Japan share many challenges of island economies,
and have a commitment to sustainable solutions that mitigate and adapt
to climate change. Shared experiences will lead to advancements indecarbonizing energy, responding to natural disasters, managing tourism forsustainability, and promoting regional economic cooperation in Northeast
Asia. Hawaii offers a model platform to test new ideas and share experiences,and dialogs for multinational cooperation.

March 11, 2022

BBL Webinar

Activities

Divestment is considered inferior to engagement because it has a small
direct effect on stock prices, and it negates voting power. Paradoxically,
fossil free divestment pledges can be a complement to shareholder
engagement. We show that go fossil free is an economic narrative thathas an impact beyond the actual amounts divested. It is a simple story
with a core contagious element that stigmatises target companies. It puts
pressure on corporate boards to effect change. It threatens the social licenceto operate and increases stranded asset risk. We show that the virality ofdivestment pledges on Twitter coincides with an increase in the carbon
premium and a higher cost of capital. Risk averse investors should divest
from carbon out of self-interest, reinforcing the narrative. Activists wereright to campaign for divestment pledges from renowned institutions andindividuals.

October 31, 2022

BBL Webinar“Japan - Hawaii SocioEconomic Innovation:
Collaborations to advanceeconomic development andclimate resilience”
Speaker: Denis Eby KONAN(Dean, College of Social Sciences
University of Hawaii at Mānoa)42

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION“APEC: Driving Asia-Pacific’s
inclusive and sustainablegrowth”
Speakers: Rebecca Fatima STA
MARIA (Executive Director,
APEC Secretariat, Singapore)

Dr. Rebecca Sta Maria’s presentation is two-part. The first half is abrief background on Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) as amultilateral institution which promotes voluntary, non-binding, consensusbuilding principles among its members. Since its establishment in 1989,
APEC helped liberalize the Asia-Pacific economy through initiatives suchas the Bogor Goals and Osaka Action Agenda. It has since expanded its
economic aspirations for the region to ensure economic growth goes handin-hand with sustainability, innovation and inclusiveness. This was madeevident by the APEC Putrajaya Vision 2040 and the subsequent Aotearoa
Plan of Action.
The second part covers the factors which make APEC essential toeconomic cooperation in the region. The forum gives voice to a variety
of stakeholders and taps into many areas of work, leading confluence ofefforts of policymakers, businesses, academia, the youth, and others.
APEC host economies consider both domestic and regional issues whenplanning the annual agenda, while ensuring that host economy priorities
remain consistent and complimentary to each other. As such, APEC’s
achievements and works are pragmatic and inclusive of the economic
realities of each member economy, who will together work towards thevision of an “open, dynamic, resilient and peaceful Asia-Pacific community
by 2040, for the prosperity of all our people and future generations.”

Li st of Events i n 20 22
In 2022 RIETI hosted 59 events, welcoming various speakers from Japan and overseas. The seminars covered a wide rangeof topics including the impact of COVID-19 on the economy, green growth strategy, geopolitical issues, DX, Japan-Asia
cooperation, and economic security. For the video and summaries of the events, please visit: https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/events/
Date

Event
Kyoto University - RIETI Symposium
A Fusion of Humanities & Sciences Research on the COVID-19 Pandemic: Prospects for with-COVID-19 society

2022/12/16

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: DX Series
The Present State and Future of the Metaverse As Seen Through the Development of “Cluster”

2022/12/14

RIETI-IJS/CASS Symposium
Japan-China Economy: The past 50 years and the next 50 years

2022/12/13

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
Penetration of Quantitative Performance Indicators of the Impact of “Design” on Organization Management

2022/12/7

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
World Economic Outlook and the Asia-Pacific Region: Countering the cost-of-living crisis2022/12/5

Nordic 5 Countries Embassy Seminar
New Form of Capitalism in Japan and the Nordic Vision: Labour participation, gender equality, and work-life balance

2022/11/30

RIETI-WINPEC-GSIS Symposium
Advanced Technology and Democracy-International Symposium “The Future of Electronic and Internet Voting in Japan”

2022/11/29

RIETI-OECD Seminar
Confronting the Crisis - OECD Economic Outlook November 2022

2022/11/28

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
Economics of Invention: Knowledge creation for innovation

2022/11/22

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
Voice Through Divestment

2022/11/17

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: DX Series
Mixed Reality that Starts from Hearing: Hearables forge the path to the ultimate MR world

2022/11/16

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: Global Intelligence Series
The American Mid-Term Election Outcome and Its Implications

2022/11/10

Waseda-RIETI Symposium
Corporate Control and ESG under “New Capitalism” - Next phase of corporate governance reforms under new capitalism -2022/10/31

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
Japan - Hawaii Socio-Economic Innovation: Collaborations to advance economic development and climate resilience

2022/10/27

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
The Future of Capitalism in a Saturated Economy

2022/10/20

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: DX Series
Transforming Equipment Maintenance with Fast Digital Twin: The latest examples of initiatives that are accelerating plant DX

2022/10/14

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
Is Maternal Age Associated with Children’s Outcomes?

2022/10/6

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: Global Intelligence Series
Understanding and Countering Beijing’s Strategy of Economic Decoupling on Chinese Terms

2022/10/4

RIETI-ANU Symposium
Australia, Japan, ASEAN and Economic Security in Asia

2022/9/30

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
APEC Energy Demand and Supply Outlook 8th Edition - Energy trends in the APEC region and Japan to 2050

2022/9/29

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
The COVID-19 Crisis - A Tale of Two Economists: Balancing economic activity with infection control measures

2022/9/14

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
The Future of Japan and Singapore

2022/9/8

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: DX Series
The Potential of the Metaverse and Web3

2022/8/29

Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research-RIETI Webinar
Low Fertility in Japan: From the viewpoint of the second democratic transition (SDT) and gender equality

2022/8/23

Japan Society for the Promotion of Machine Industry - Economic Research Institute Online Seminar
Toward Japan’s Future Energy Policy: The role of offshore wind power and other renewable energy sources

2022/7/29

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
Nagasaki Saves the World

2022/7/27

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: Global Intelligence Series
Growth and Capitalism in the Era of Climate Change

2022/7/21

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
The Sword and the Shield: The economics of targeted sanctions

Activities

2022/12/19*Events highlighted in green are the special symposiums.

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

43

RIETI Activities
Date

Activities
44

Event

2022/7/20

RIETI Open BBL Webinar[RIETI-SME Support, JAPAN Webinar] Listening to SMEs During the COVID Crisis: Utilizing the SME business survey

2022/7/14

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: Global Intelligence Series
Japan’s Geoeconomic Strategy in the Indo-Pacific2022/7/7

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: DX Series
What Should the Government Do to Help Japan Regain Superiority in Software Engineering?

2022/6/30

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
The Impact of the Weak Yen on Japan’s Economy: How do we deal with the recent depreciation of the yen?

2022/6/24

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
The Latest Situation in Russia and Ukraine and Essential Thoughts on the Japan-India Relationship

2022/6/23

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: Global Intelligence Series
Carbon Pricing, From a Burden to an Opportunity? Testimony and shared vision from EDF, Europe’s leading electric utility

2022/6/16

RIETI Open BBL Webinar“New Direction” of Economic and Industrial Policies

2022/6/15

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: DX Series
Four Keywords to Understanding the Success of Silicon Valley

2022/6/14

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
World Economic Outlook and the Asia-Pacific Region: War sets back the global recovery

2022/6/10

IEA-METI-RIETI Conference
New Thinking on Industrial Policy

2022/6/7

RIETI Policy Symposium
Value Creation in the Digital Age - The perspective of design-driven management

2022/5/30

ISEAS-RIETI Webinar
ASEAN Perspectives on Current Geopolitics and Japan

2022/5/27

RIETI Seminar: 20 Years of China in the WTO
Reflecting on China’s 20 Years at the WTO

2022/5/11

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
Realization of the Physical Internet – Overcoming the logistics crisis2022/4/27

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
The Latest Situation in Russia and Ukraine and Essential Thoughts on the Japan-India Relationship

2022/4/20

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
Food Security and Japan’s Farm Policy: Lessons from the Russian invasion of Ukraine

2022/4/19

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
High Economic Growth and Finance2022/4/13

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
Industrial Policy for the Sustainable Development Goals – Increasing the private sector's contribution –2022/4/6

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: DX Series
Digital Businesses in the Post-COVID-19 Era

2022/3/23

RIETI-CEPR Symposium
Exploring the New Capitalism

2022/3/15

RIETI-JRI Webinar
Energy Demand-Based (Demand-Driven) Decarbonized Economy

2022/3/11

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
APEC: Driving Asia-Pacific’s inclusive and sustainable growth2022/3/4

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
DX Thinking and the Future of Education

2022/3/2

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: DX Series
Risk Management and DX

2022/2/25

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: DX Series
SRE Holdings’ DX Deployment and Creation of Vertical SaaS

2022/2/16

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: Global Intelligence Series
The Geopolitics of Semiconductors Toward 2030: Who will control strategic materials?

2022/2/8

RIETI-ANU Symposium
CPTPP and Beyond: Multilateralism in an era of great power strategic competition

2022/2/2

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: DX Series
New Regional Revitalization Strategy: Promoting smart cities

2022/1/27

RIETI-IEEJ-EUCJ Joint Webinar
Carbon Pricing for Net Zero / Utilizing Market Mechanism

2022/1/20

RIETI Open BBL Webinar
Foreign Entrepreneurs Preserving Japanese Culture: Fascinated by its charm

2022/1/12

RIETI Open BBL Webinar: Global Intelligence Series
Biden’s First Year: The international and domestic implications for 2022

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

(As of the end of December 2022, Alphabetical order)

RIETI Title

Name

Expertise

Senior Fellow

IKARI Hiroshi

Senior Fellow (Specially Appointed)

Development Finance, Capital Formation, Pension

IKEUCHI Kenta

Senior Fellow (Policy Economist)

Empirical Analysis on R&D, Innovation and Productivity

ITO Arata

Senior Fellow

Macroeconomics

KITAO Sagiri

Senior Fellow (Specially Appointed)

Macroeconomics, Fiscal and Social Security Policy

KONDO Keisuke

Senior Fellow

KONISHI Yoko

Senior Fellow

Econometrics, Statistics, Service Industries (Tourism Policy, Energy-saving Labels, and Consumer’s Behavior)

NAKATA Daigo

Senior Fellow

Public Economics, Public Finance, Social Security, Health CareSAITO Yukiko

Senior Fellow (Specially Appointed)

Spatial Economics, Network Analysis, Industrial Organization

SEKIGUCHI Yoichi

Senior Fellow

Local Economy

SEKIZAWA Yoichi

Senior Fellow

Japan’s FTA Policy, Application of Cognitive Therapy to Social Science

TAKEMORI Shumpei

Senior Fellow (Specially Appointed)

International Trade, International Finance

TAMURA Suguru

Senior Fellow

Science and Technology, Innovation Policy

THORBECKE Willem

Senior Fellow

International Economics, Monetary Economics

YAMASHITA Kazuhito

Senior Fellow (Specially Appointed)

ZHANG Hongyong

Senior Fellow

International Trade and Investment, Chinese Economy, Applied Microeconometrics

ADACHI Daisuke

Fellow (Specially Appointed)

International Economics, Labor Economics

ARAKI Shota

Fellow (Policy Economist)

Labor Economics, Personnel Economics, Applied Microeconometrics

ARATA Yoshiyuki

Fellow

Macroeconomics, Industrial Dynamics, Stochastic Processes

HASHIMOTO Yuki

Fellow (Policy Economist)

Labor Economics, Immigrant Workers, SMEs, EBPM

LIU Yang

FellowLabor Economics, Employment, Wage, Human Capital, Labor Market, Migration

MATSUMOTO Kodai

Fellow (Policy Economist)

Labor Economics, Public Assistance Policy

ONUMA Hiroki

Fellow (Policy Economist)

Environmental and Energy Economics, Climate Change Policy, Disaster Management

SENGA Tatsuro

Fellow (Specially Appointed)

Macroeconomics, Macro-Finance, Firm Dynamics

SUMIYA Kazuhiko

Fellow (Policy Economist)

Labor Economics, Public Economics, Applied Microeconometrics

YIN Ting

Fellow (Specially Appointed)

Macroeconomics, Household Economics, Chinese Economy, Labor Economics

FUJII Daisuke

Research AssociateInternational Trade, Firm Dynamics and Macroeconomics, Supply Chain and Firm Networks, Urban Economics

GOTO Yasuo

Research Associate

Industrial Organization, SME Research, Financial Economics

ITO Banri

Research AssociateInternational Economics, R&D, Innovation

IWAMOTO Koichi

Research Associate

Renewable Energy, IoT/Industrie4.0, Regional Economy, German Economy, Chinese Economy

KAMEI Kenju

Research Associate

Experimental Economics, Behavioral Economics, Business Economics, Public Economics, Applied Economics

KATO Atsuyuki

Research Associate

Economic Growth, Productivity Analysis, Trade and Development

KAWAMURA Satoshi

Research Associate

Economic History of Japan, History of Transportation Industry, Industrial Safety Administration

KIYOTA Kozo

Research AssociateInternatoinal Economics and Data Science

KODAMA Naomi

Research Associate

Applied Microeconomics, Labor Economics

MAKIOKA Ryo

Research Associate

Applied Microeconomic, International Economics

NAKATA Hiroyuki

Research Associate

Microeconomic Theory, Financial Economics

NISHITATENO Shuhei

Research AssociateInternational Economics, Transport Economics, Environmental Economics, Japanese Economy

ODA Keiichiro

Research AssociateGame Theoretic Analysis of Investors’ Strategic Interactions in Financial Markets

OKIMOTO Tatsuyoshi

Research Associate

Financial Econometrics, Macroeconometrics, Energy Economics

TANAKA Ayumu

Research AssociateInternational Trade, Foreign Direct Investment, Natural Disasters

TOMOHARA Akinori

Research AssociateInternational Economics, Labor Economics, Public Economics

TSUKADA Naotoshi

Research Associate

Economics of Innovation, Industrial Organization

Spatial Economics, Development Economics, Labor Economics, Applied Econometrics (Microeconometrics, Spatial Econometrics, Bayesian
Econometrics)

Food and Agricultural Policy, Issues for Intermediate and Mountainous Areas, WTO Agricultural Negotiations, Trade and Environment, Tradeand Food Safety

List of Fellows

Fellow

Research Associate

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

45

Name

RIETI Title

Expertise

WAKABAYASHI Midori

Research Associate

YAMAUCHI Isamu

Research Associate

Innovation, Research and Development (R&D) Management, Intellectual Property

YOKOO Hide-Fumi

Research Associate

Environmental and Resource Economics

YUDA Michio

Research Associate

Health Economics, Social Security, Applied Microeconometrics

AOYAMA Hideaki

Faculty Fellow

Theoretical Physics, Econophysics

ARIMURA Toshi H.

Faculty Fellow

Environmental Economics, Energy Economics, Applied Econometrics, Climate Policy

FUJIWARA Ippei

Faculty Fellow

Macroeconomics, Monetary Economics, International Finance

FUKAO Kyoji

Faculty Fellow

Macroeconomics, International Economics, Historical Economics

HAMAGUCHI Nobuaki

Faculty Fellow

Spatial Economics, Regional Studies (Brazil)

HIROTA Shigeru

Faculty Fellow

Health and Economy, Regional Economics

HOSONO Kaoru

Faculty Fellow

Banking Regulations, Corporate Finance, Monetary Policy, Aggregate Productivity

INUI Tomohiko

Faculty Fellow

Economic Policy, Productivity, International Economics

ITO Asei

Faculty Fellow

Chinese Economy, Asian Economy

JINJI Naoto

Faculty Fellow

International Economics, Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, Industrial Organization

KAMBAYASHI Ryo

Faculty Fellow

KAWAGUCHI Daiji

Faculty Fellow

Labor Economics, Empirical Microeconomics

KAWAHAMA Noboru

Faculty Fellow

Antitrust Law, Competition Policy

KAWASE Tsuyoshi

Faculty Fellow

International Economic Law, Trade Policy

KOBAYASHI Keiichiro

Faculty Fellow

Endogenous Growth Theory, General Equilibrium, Business Cycles, Bad Debt Problem, Debt Control Policy, Macropolitical Economy

KONDO Ayako

Faculty Fellow

Labor Economics

KURODA Sachiko

Faculty Fellow

KWON Hyeog Ug

Faculty Fellow

Productivity Analysis, Industrial Organization

MANAGI Shunsuke

Faculty Fellow

Environmental Economics, Resource economics, Applied Microeconomics

MIYAGAWA Tsutomu

Faculty Fellow

Macroeconomics; Japanese Economics; Asian Economic Trends

MIYAJIMA Hideaki

Faculty Fellow

Japanese Economy, Economic History of Japan, Corporate Finance, Corporate Governance Comparative Financial Systems

MORI Tomoya

Faculty Fellow

Spatial Economics, Urban and Regional Economics

MOTOHASHI Kazuyuki

Faculty Fellow

NAGAOKA Sadao

Faculty Fellow

Policy and Institutions for Innovation

NAKAGAWA Junji

Faculty Fellow

International Economic Law, Global Governance

NAKAJIMA Kentaro

Faculty Fellow

Spatial Economics, Urban Economics

NAKAMURA Ryohei

Faculty Fellow

Regional Science and Urban Economics

NAKAMURO Makiko

Faculty Fellow

Educational Economics

NIREI Makoto

Faculty Fellow

Macroeconomics

NISHIMURA Kazuo

Faculty Fellow

Nonlinear Economic Dynamics, Educational Economics, Neuroeconomics

OGAWA Eiji

Faculty Fellow

International Currency, International Finance

OHASHI Hiroshi

Faculty Fellow

Industrial Organization, Competition Policy, Science & Technology Innovation Policy, Trade Policy, Economic Policy

OHTAKE Fumio

Faculty Fellow

Behavioral Economics, Labor Economics

OKAZAKI Tetsuji

Faculty Fellow

Economic History, Development Economics, Comparative Institutional Analysis

ONO Yoshikuni

Faculty Fellow

Japanese Politics, Electoral Systems, Voting Behavior

OWAN Hideo

Faculty Fellow

Personnel Economics, Organizational Economics, Labor Economics, Innovation Economics

SAHASHI Ryo

Faculty Fellow

International Politics in East Asia

SATO Motohiro

Faculty Fellow

Public Finance, Local Public Finance

SHIROYAMA Hideaki

Faculty Fellow

Public Administration, International Public Administration, Science, Technology and Public Policy

TANAKA Mari

Faculty Fellow

Labor Economics, Development Economics, International Economics

TANAKA Ryuichi

Faculty Fellow

Labor Economics, Economics of Education

Faculty Fellow

List of Fellows
46

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

Field of Specialization: Labor Economics, Applied Microeconomics/Research Topics: Work Hours, Time Allocation/Time Use, Mental Health andWorkplace, Health and Productivity Management

Applied Microeconomics, Economic Statistics, Econometrics, International Comparison of Productivity, Economic Analysis of Information
Technology, Technological Innovation and Economic Growth, Innovation System, Input-Output Analysis

(As of the end of December 2022, Alphabetical order)Name

RIETI Title

Expertise

TODO Yasuyuki

Faculty Fellow

International Economics, Development Economics, Japanese Economy, Applied Microeconometrics

TOMIURA Eiichi

Faculty Fellow

Empirical International Trade

TSURU Kotaro

Faculty Fellow

Comparative Institutional Analysis, Organizational Economics, Labor Market Institutions

UCHIYAMA Yu

Faculty Fellow

Japanese Politics, Comparative Politics

UESUGI Iichiro

Faculty Fellow

Banking, Corporate Finance, Small and Medium Enterprises, Japanese Economy

UNAYAMA Takashi

Faculty Fellow

Household Behavior, Applied Econometrics, Index Theory

WASHIDA Yuichi

Faculty Fellow

Marketing, Diffusion of Innovation, Design Research, Foresight Studies

WATANABE Junko

Faculty Fellow

Economic History, History of Economic Policy, History of Industry, Business History

YAMORI Nobuyoshi

Faculty Fellow

Empirical Research on the Japanese Financial System

YOSHIKAWA Hiroshi

Faculty Fellow

Macroeconomics, Japanese Economy

Consulting Fellow

AKAHOSHI Yasushi

Consulting Fellow

AMBASHI Masahito

Consulting Fellow

ANDO HaruhikoConsulting Fellow

ANJO Takayuki

Consulting Fellow

International Relations

ARAKAWA Kiyoaki

Consulting Fellow

Interregional Migration

ARIMA Jun

Consulting Fellow

Energy and Climate Policy

Chi Hung KWAN (C. H. Kwan) Consulting Fellow

China’s Economic Reform, Regional Integration in Asia, Yen Bloc

ENDO Noriko

Consulting Fellow

Policy Development for Regional Industries, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Organization (Network, Community, Nonprofit-Organization)

ENOMOTO Shunichi

Consulting Fellow

International Business, Servitization under IoT, Digitalized Production

ETO Manabu

Consulting Fellow

Management of Technology, Standardization, Innovation Policy

FUJI KazuhikoConsulting Fellow

FUKUNAGA Yoshifumi

Consulting Fellow

International Economic Law, International Political Economy, Regional Economic Integration of ASEAN and East Asia

FUKUYAMA Mitsuhiro

Consulting Fellow

Globalization, International Political Economy, Trade, U.S.-China Relations, Regional Integration, Poverty Reduction

HARA Keishiro

Consulting Fellow

Future Design, Technology Policy and Innovation, Environmental and Energy Policy, Sustainability Science

HARADA Takashi

Consulting Fellow

Intellectual Property Policy, SME Policy, Innovation Policy, Organizational Design Theory, Public Relations

HASHIMOTO Kenji

Consulting Fellow

Human Resources, Education, Human Capital, Productivity, AI, Labor Market

HATA Shigenori

Consulting Fellow

Innovation Policy, R&D Evaluation

HATTORI Takashi

Consulting Fellow

International Relations, Trade Policy, Environment and Energy Policy

HAYAFUJI Masahiro

Consulting Fellow

Trade and Related Policies, Trade Regimes, Economic History, Environmental Economics

HIBIKI Akira

Consulting Fellow

Environmental and Resource Economics, Law and Economics (in the Area of Accident Law)HIRAYAMA Yuka

Consulting Fellow

HISHINUMA Takeshi

Consulting Fellow

Intellectual Property, Private International Law and International Relations

IKEDA Yoko

Consulting Fellow

Policy and Institutions for Innovation, Rulemaking, Global Governance

INOUE Ayaka

Consulting Fellow

INUKAI ShinyaConsulting Fellow

Macroeconomic Policy

ISHII Yoshi(aki)Consulting Fellow

SME and Venture Business Policy, Industrial Organization, Innovation Policy

ISHIKAWA Toshiki

Consulting Fellow

Official Statistics, New Statistics Development with Utilizing Big Data, Data Visualization, A Design Policy, Design Management

ITO KojiConsulting Fellow

Firms’ International Activity (Trade, FDI, etc.), Dynamics of Firms

IWASAKI Fusanori

Consulting Fellow

International Relations, Trade Negotiations, East Asia Economic Integration

KAMEI Hiromichi

Consulting Fellow

Macroeconomy, Tax · Finance · Social Security

KANKE Masaru

Consulting Fellow

KAWASAKI Kenichi

Consulting Fellow

KAWASHIMA Yusaku

Consulting Fellow

KIDO Fuyuko

Consulting Fellow

Effects of Trends in Crude Oil and Natural Gas on International Affairs, Impacts of Super Aging Society on Japan (including community theory),
China’s Political Economy, U.S. Political Economy, Energy Cooperation with Russia (Natural gas pipeline project in Sakhalin)

List of Fellows

Applied Microeconomics, Industrial Organization, Industrial Policy, Innovation, Economic Development (Asian Economy)

Cultural and Economic Policies, Fashion Policies, Luxury Brand Management and Cool Japan Policies that to Capture the Overseas Demand in
Lifestyle and Cultural Industries

Economics (Economic Model Analysis)
Artificial Intelligence (AI), AI Ethics, Data Science, Statistics, Finance, Economics, Technology Policy, Leadership, Design Thinking, System
Dynamics, Foresight Methodologies
Quantum Chemistry, Innovation

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

47

Name

RIETI Title

Expertise

List of Fellows

KIKUCHI Yasuyuki

Consulting Fellow

Macroeconomics, Monetary Policy, Regional Finance, Growth Theory

KIMURA Fukunari

Consulting Fellow

International Trade, Development Economics, East Asian Economies

KIMURA Takuya

Consulting Fellow

Trade and Investment Policy, Rulemaking, Management

KITAMURA Kenta

Consulting Fellow

KOBAYASHI Hirokazu

Consulting Fellow

Learning Organization, Innovation, Southeast Asia and Indo-Pacific Affairs

KOBAYASHI Masanori

Consulting Fellow

International Public Policy, Regional Economy, Urban Policy, Real Estate Studies, etc.

KOBAYASHI Yohei

Consulting Fellow

Public Economics, Applied Econometrics, Tax Policy, Public Finance, Social Security, Evidence-Based Policy Making, Urban Economics

KOMETANI Kazumochi

Consulting Fellow

KUNITO Takayuki

Consulting Fellow

KUTSUZAWA Ryuji

Consulting Fellow

Urban Economics, Analysis of Real Estate Prices, REITs and Institutions for Innovation

MASAKI Yusuke

Consulting Fellow

Policy Making; EBPM (Evidence-Based Policy Making); Public Management; Local Administration; Economic Growth

MATSUMOTO Hideyuki

Consulting Fellow

MATSUMOTO Rie

Consulting Fellow

MATSUNAGA Akira

Consulting Fellow

MIURA Satoshi

Consulting Fellow

MIYOSHI Yoshiyuki

Consulting Fellow

MIZUNO Ryota

Consulting Fellow

MONDEN Yuichiro

Consulting Fellow

MORIMOTO Takuya

Consulting Fellow

MUNAKATA Naoko

Consulting Fellow

NAGAI Hiroyuki

Consulting Fellow

NAGAMACHI Daisuke

Consulting Fellow

NAKADATE Naoto

Consulting Fellow

NAKAGAMI Yasunori

Consulting Fellow

NAKAJIMA Atsushi

Consulting Fellow

NAKAMURA Yoshiaki

Consulting Fellow

Industrial Theory, Industrial Policy, Management of Technology

NAKANISHI Tasuku

Consulting Fellow

EPA, FTA, Investment Agreements, Industrial Development and Trade & Investment

NAKATOMI Michitaka

Consulting Fellow

NAKAZAWA Norio

Consulting Fellow

Economic Thought, Market Analysis, Public Finance, Personnel Economics

NAMBU Tomoshige

Consulting Fellow

Public Finance, Tax Policy, Trade Policy

NISHIDA Akio

Consulting Fellow

NISHIGAKI Atsuko

Consulting Fellow

NISHIOKA Takashi

Consulting Fellow

NUMAMOTO Kazuki

Consulting Fellow

ODAKI KazuhikoConsulting Fellow

OGURO Kazumasa

Consulting Fellow

Public Economics

OIKAWA Keita

Consulting Fellow

Macroeconomics, International Economics, Econometrics, Public Economics, Industrial Organization

OKADA Yo

Consulting Fellow

Macroeconomic Policy and Analysis, International Trade and Investment Policy, Corporate Tax and Financial Accounting Policy

OKAMURO Hiroyuki

Consulting Fellow

OKAWA Tatsuo

Consulting Fellow

ONODERA Osamu

Consulting Fellow

Trade Policy and Innovation Policy

OSABE Yoshiyuki

Consulting Fellow

Bibliometrics, Intellectual Property Rights, STI Policy

SAITO Takashi

Consulting Fellow

Official Statistics, New Statistics Development with Utilizing Big Data

SAKAMOTO Masazumi

Consulting Fellow

Sustainable Development, History

Economic Security, Economic Interdependence Theory (International Relations), Decision-Making Theory (The Game Theory, Behavioral
Economics), Regional Security ArchitectureInternational Financial Markets, Multinational Investment Banking, Global Strategic Information Systems Management, Offshoring andOutsourcing, Cross-Cultural Studies
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Digital Transformation and Innovation Ecosystem

Public Finance, Regional Economics, Macroeconomics, Housing Policy, Infrastructure Policy

Information Technology Industrial Policy, Competition Policy, Intellectual Property Policy, Systems Thinking, High Field Science, High Energy
Density Science

International Trade Regime, Economic Security, Innovation, Intellectual Properties, Risk Management, Data Governance

Macroeconomics, Public Investment, Public Policy
Science, Technology & Innovation Policy / Startup Supporting Policy / Research of Disruptive Technologies / Uncertain Management under
Pandemic, Disaster & Accident / Diversity Leading to the High Quality of Organizational Decision / FoodTech / Middle East Oil Money toJapanese DeepTech / Production Management & Manufacturing

48

RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

International Economy, Trade Law, Trade Policy, Intellectual Property and International Standards, Investment Policy, Technology Policy, Digital
Economy, Global Value Chains, Industrial Policy

Social Security

Empirical Studies in Industrial Organization and Business Economics, Especially on Small Business, Start-Ups, Innovation, R&D Collaboration,and Innovation Policy

(As of the end of December 2022, Alpahbetical order)

RIETI Title

Expertise

Consulting Fellow

SATO Dai

Consulting Fellow

International Relations in Asia, Chinese Diplomacy

SATO Katsuhiro

Consulting Fellow

Strategic Management, Corporate Finance, M&A

SEKIGUCHI Kunio

Consulting Fellow

SHIRAI Hiroaki

Consulting Fellow

Urban Economics, Infrastructure Planning, Disaster Risk Management

SHONO Yoshihisa

Consulting Fellow

Macroeconomics, Econometrics, Policy Evaluation, Economic Inequality

SUGIYAMA Seiji

Consulting Fellow

Regional Economic and Industrial Policy, Productivity Analysis, Information Policy

SUZUKI Kenichi

Consulting Fellow

TADOKORO HajimeConsulting Fellow

TAKAGI Seiji

Consulting Fellow

International Trade Policy in Asia-Pacific, Economic Security Policy, Finance

TAKEDA Takuya

Consulting Fellow

Trade Policy, Economic Cooperation Policy, Economic Security Policy, Southeast Asia

TAKEGAMI Shiro

Consulting Fellow

TAKEUCHI Maiko

Consulting Fellow

TAMURA AkihikoConsulting Fellow

TANABE Yasuo

Consulting Fellow

TANI Midori

Consulting Fellow

TASHIRO Takeshi

Consulting Fellow

TOMOZAWA Takanori

Consulting Fellow

Economic Growth, Innovation, Energy & Environment, Mobility, Digital, System Design

TSUDA Hirokazu

Consulting Fellow

Evidence-Based Policy Making, Behavioral Economics, Entrepreneurship, Regional Economy

TSURUTA Hitoshi

Consulting Fellow

UNO YuyaConsulting Fellow

Public Economics

YAMADA Masato

Consulting Fellow

Work-Life Balance, Intellectual Property Policy, Consumer Policy, Regional Economies, Energy Policy

YOSHIDA Hiroki

Consulting Fellow

YOSHIDA Ryohei

Consulting Fellow

Industry-University Cooperation, Innovation, Medical Device and Healthcare Innovation, Regional Industrial Development, Security Export
Control, Start-Up Support Program, Research Project Management
Economic Sanctions, Economics and National Security, Strategic Trade Control, Non-Proliferation, Arms Control
International Political Economy, Global Governance, International Economic Law, Regional Integration (Especially, EU and East Asian Region),
Corporate Social Responsibility, China

Consumer Policy, Environment Policy

List of Fellows

Name

SANO Tomoki

Digitalization of Government Service, Design Thinking for Government Service, Management Strategy for Corporations and Government
Agencies
Macroeconomy, Japanese Economy, Monetary Policy, Social Security Policy

Visiting Fellow

International Trade and International Economic Policy, Foreign Direct Investment, East Asian Economy, Japanese Economy, Chinese Economy,

ARMSTRONG Shiro

Visiting Fellow

ITO Hiroyuki

Visiting Fellow

International Macroeconomics, International Finance, Monetary Economics

ITO Koichiro

Visiting Fellow

Environmental and Energy Economics, Industrial Organization, Public Economics

MENG Jianjun

Visiting Fellow

Development Economics, Industry Development, Environmental Policy

NARITA Yusuke

Visiting Fellow

Design, Evaluation, Prediction of Education, Health, Labor Policies

YAMAGUCHI Kazuo

Visiting Fellow

Cross Straits Economic Relation, South Asian-East Asian Economic Integration, Australia-Japan Relations

1. Quantitative Methodology (Event-History Models and Models for Categorical Data), 2. Work and Family, Work-Life Balance, 3. Modelsof Rational/Purposive Social Action, 4. Life Course and Occupational Career, 5. Social Stratification and Social Inequality, 6. Contemporary
Japanese Society, 7. Social Network, Exchange, and Diffusion, 8. Epidemiology of Drug Abuse, 9. Longitudinal Analysis of Drug Use History

Editorial Note:
RIETI is making a fresh start with the appointment of Chairman Shujiro Urata in January 2023. As noted in the interview,
Chairman Urata’s expertise covers international economics and economic development theory. He is also eager to promote theinternationalization of RIETI. We are set to work harder than ever under the leadership of this new internationalist leader. (T)This was the first time in roughly six years that I had been fully involved in the planning and editing of a PR magazine. I
thought back on my previous experience regarding the process and organized the interview. This PR magazine focuses on
RIETI Fellows. We hope you will find their research interesting. (W)The daylight is getting longer and I can feel the approach of spring. For the first time in three years, we might be able to enjoy
cherry blossoms viewing with relax, so I would like to visit viewing spots not only in Tokyo but also in the suburbs. (M)(RIETI Highlight Editorial Team)For comments and suggestions on this issue, please contact: pr-general@rieti.go.jp
RIETI Highlight 2023 SPECIAL EDITION

49

Research Institute of Economy, Trade & Industry, IAA
https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/@en.RIETI@RIETIenglish

https://www.youtube.com/user/rietichannel