As of 13 Mar.

Sixth Annual Conferenceof the Japan Economy Network
Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, 21-22 March 2024
Venue: Hitotsubashi Hall (2-1-2 Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo)
21 March 2024
09:00 – 09:20

Registration

09:20 – 09:30

Welcome Toshitaka Sekine (Hitotsubashi Univ.) Ulrich Volz (SOAS, Univ. of London & JEN)

09:30 – 10:20

Session 1: Monetary policy
Chair: Jan Toporowski (SOAS, Univ. of London) Tanweer Akram (Citibank) “A brief history of Japanese monetary
policy in twenty-first century”
Discussant: Takeshi Shinohara (Bank of Japan)
 Wenti Du (Akita International Univ.) “Investment, liquidity traps
and real interest rates: A comparison between Japan and theU.K.”
Discussant: Enrico Pulieri (SOAS, Univ. of London)

10:20 – 10:40

Coffee break

10:40 – 11:55

Session 2: Monetary/Fiscal policy and inflation
Chair: Andrew Filardo (Hoover Institution, Stanford Univ.)
 Takuji Fueki (Kagawa Univ.) “Understanding Japanese inflation asa joint monetary-fiscal phenomenon”
Discussant: Pierre Siklos (Wilfrid Laurier Univ.)
 Takeki Sunakawa (Hitotsubashi Univ.) “Fiscal inflation in Japan:
The role of unfunded fiscal shocks”
Discussant: Takuji Fueki (Kagawa Univ.)1 Pierre Siklos (Wilfrid Laurier Univ.) “Model aggregation forimproving forecasts of Canada’s core inflation rate”
Discussant: Jouchi Nakajima (Hitotsubashi Univ.)
11:55 – 13:00

Lunch

13:00 – 14:00

Keynote speech
Chair: Toshitaka Sekine (Hitotsubashi Univ)
Speaker: Masaaki Shirakawa (Former Bank of Japan Governor)

14:00 – 14:10

Short break

14:10 – 15:00

Session 3: Financial market
Chair: Wataru Takahashi (Osaka Univ. of Economics)
 John Beirne (ADB) “Risk-off shocks and spillovers in safe havens”
Discussant: Wenti Du (Akita International Univ.) Enrico Pulieri (SOAS, Univ. of London) “The financial
consequences of yield curve control in Japan”
Discussant: Tanweer Akram (Citibank)

15:00 – 15:35

Coffee break

15:35 – 16:25

Session 4: Topics on central banking
Chair: Peter Matanle (Univ. of Sheffield)
 Wataru Takahashi (Osaka Univ. of Economics) A proposal for an
Asian digital common currency or ADCC
Discussant: Markus Heckel (German Institute for JapaneseStudies) Takeshi Shinohara (Bank of Japan) “International comparison ofclimate change news index with an application to monetarypolicy”
Discussant: Takeki Sunakawa (Hitotsubashi Univ.)

16:25 – 16:35

Short break2

16:35 – 18:00

Policy panel: Monetary policy challenges
Chair: Andrew Filardo (Hoover Institution, Stanford Univ.) Naohiko Baba (Barclays) Heather Montgomery (International Christian University)
 Uwe Nebgen (Bundesbank) Toshitaka Sekine (Hitotsubashi Univ.) Pierre Siklos (Wilfrid Laurier Univ.)

18:15 – 21:00

Dinner reception at the restaurant “Josui-Kaikan” (3 minutes walkfrom the conference venue)
Dinner keynote speech
Chair: Markus Heckel (German Institute for Japanese Studies)
Speaker: Nobuko Nagase (Ochanomizu University)

22 March 2024
09:10 – 10:00

Session 5: Womenomics
Chair: Naomi Davies (British Embassy Tokyo)
 Sofia Rebrey (MGIMO Univ.) Gender equality in Japan: The
progress of womenomics according to axial inequality index
Discussant: Stefan Heeb (Kanagawa Univ.) Marcela Monti (Univ. Politecnica de Madrid) Women's economy:
Tokyo's new housing patterns and urban development
Discussant: Sofia Rebrey (MGIMO Univ.)

10:00 – 10:50

Session 6: Productivity and labor market
Chair: David Chiavacci (Univ. of Zurich) Stefan Heeb (Kanagawa Univ.) Simultaneous recruitment of newgraduates (SRoNG): What it is, why it persists, and how it ischanging
Discussant: Peter Matanle (Univ. of Sheffield)
 Georg D. Blind (Univ. of Zurich) Productivity and stress inJapanese new teleworkers: Mandatory versus voluntary
introduction
Discussant: Yoshikatsu Shinozawa (Hitotsubashi Univ.)3

10:50 – 11:10

Coffee break

11:10 – 12:00

Session 7: Corporate finance and governance
Chair: Nobuyuki Kinoshita (Tokyo Financial Exchange)
 Govinda Finn (Kobe Univ.) Has a Main Bank relationship provedbeneficial for Japanese firms in the post-GFC period?
Discussant: Jouchi Nakajima (Hitotsubashi Univ.) Noriyuki Tsunogaya (Hitotsubashi Univ.) Navigating financial
turmoil: Assessing distress in Japanese companies throughreadability and length cues
Discussant: Alex Dryden (SOAS)

12:00 – 13:00

Lunch

13:00 – 13:50

Session 8: Strategic international policy
Chair: Ikuko Fueda-Samikawa (Japan Center for Economic Research) Shu Fukuya (Japan Bank for International Cooperation) Japan’s
strategic development cooperation
Discussant: Hiroaki Watanabe (Ritsumeikan Univ.) David Chiavacci (Univ. of Zurich) Transnationalism and foreign
workers in Japan: Between state policies and market forces
Discussant: Marcela Monti (Univ. Politecnica de Madrid)

13:50 – 15:00

Policy panel: Sustainable finance
Chair: Ulrich Volz (SOAS, Univ. of London & JEN)
 Satoshi Ikeda (Financial Services Agency)
 Maiko Morishita (Climate Bonds Initiative)
 [TBD]

15:00 – 15:30

Coffee break

15:30 – 16:20

Session 9: Climate change
Chair: Georg D. Blind (Univ. of Zurich) Nobuyuki Kinoshita (Tokyo Financial Exchange) The transactions
for carbon pricing in Japan
Discussant: Ulrich Volz (SOAS, Univ. of London & JEN)

4 Peter Matanle (Univ. of Sheffield) Out of Amazonia: The light andshadow of East Asian development in the Anthropocene Epoch
Discussant: Shu Fukuya (Japan Bank for InternationalCooperation)
16:20 – 16:30

Short break

16:30 – 17:45

Session 10: Structural issues on Japanese economy
Chair: Takuji Fueki (Kagawa Univ.) Hiroaki Watanabe (Ritsumeikan Univ.) “Japanʼs great stagna on:
The failure of Abenomics”
Discussant: David Chiavacci (Univ. of Zurich) Alex Dryden (SOAS) “Japanese institutional investors and bondmarkets: Stuck between a rock and a hard place”
Discussant: John Beirne (ADB) Yoshikatsu Shinozawa (Hitotsubashi Univ.) Counting or growing
the beans: The presence and strategic impact of Chief Financial
Officers (CFOs) in Japanese firms
Discussant: Govinda Finn (Kobe Univ.)

17:45 – 17:55

Closing remarks
 Franz Waldenberger (German Institute for Japanese Studies) Ulrich Volz (SOAS, Univ. of London & JEN)***The Japan Economy Network is hosted by the Department of Economics of SOAS,
University of London.

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