2018.10.27.
Greetings from the International Committee
Ladies and Gentlemen, we welcome all of you from all over the world tothe 17th International Conference of the Japan Economic Policy Associationat Keio University.
I am Naotsugu Hayashi, Vice Chair of the International Committee. I
will briefly explain the role and significance of this international conference.
JEPA holds two big conferences every year, as was introduced byPresident just before.

One is a national convention to be conducted inJapanese, and another is an international conference to be held in English.
JEPA international conference celebrates its 17th year, and it is one ofthe best known international conference in Japan to be conducted in English.
Many scholars and researchers from all over the world participate in thisconference every year to contribute to the international development of
economic policy studies.

About 150 to 220 scholars and researchers haveparticipated in this conference every year.
The main theme of this year's international conference is " Do Our BestDays Lie Ahead?: Stable Growth or Unstable Decline ". And there are two
Plenary sessions according to this main theme.

The theme of Plenary

Session 1 is " Active Monetary Easing and Stable Growth Policy" and thetheme of Plenary Session 2 is " Macroeconomic Fluctuations and Stable
Growth Policy".
The global financial crisis occurred with the Lehman shock in 2008
triggered. After that, not only advanced countries but also developing
countries experienced a prolonged deflation with serious economic
downturn and sustained decline in prices. Many countries mobilized
economic policies such as monetary and fiscal policies and industrial
policies to try to escape from serious deflation and to aim for recovery ofstable growth. In fiscal policy, governments issued a large amount of deficit
government bonds and invoked an effective demand policy for public works
projects. Also, in monetary policy, central banks introduced non-traditional
policies such as zero interest rate policy and bold quantitative monetaryeasing, but they have not been getting a remarkable effect.
Then the JEPA determined the main theme of this International
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Conference as "Do Our Best Days Lie Ahead?: Stable Growth or Unstable

Decline " in order to investigate the causes of the deflation and to clarify theeffective policies to overcome the deflation and recover stable growth. The
plenary session 1 discusses and analyses the effects of quantitative
monetary easing and negative interest rate policy on stable growth of theeconomy. Plenary recession 2 discusses and analyses the relationshipbetween macroeconomic fluctuations and stable growth.
Next, Professor Satake, Chair of the program committee will explain theprogram of this conference in detail.

I would like to sincerely ask all of you

to participate in the Plenary sessions and regular sessions to have active andmeaningful presentations and discussions.
JEPA publishes two refereed journals every year. One is the Journal of
Economic Policy published in Japanese and another is the International
Journal of Economic Policy Studies, IJEPS published in English.

If youpresent your full paper at the JEPA international conference, you will be
qualified to apply your revised paper to the IJEPS.

Many presenters

applied their papers every year. The acceptance rate is about 30-50%, andwe keep maintaining the quality required for academic journals. Rigorous
refereeing would guarantee the quality and value of accepted papers as an
academic paper.

JEPA will give a JEPA Award to the most outstanding

paper which will be selected from accepted papers by IJEPS and Journal of
Economic Policy.
So we hope you will submit as many papers as possible to IJEPS.
Thank you for your attention.

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