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Lecture Abstract: When the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan regained power led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in December 2012, Japan’s government embarked on a set of economic policies dubbed "Abenomics." Abenomics aimed to bring Japan back from stagnation and restore its growth potential. Prime Minister Abe is now the longest serving Japanese Prime Minister in history. Abenomics looks seemingly successful as well. Japan’s economy has been in the longest expansion phase in the post war era. The unemployment rate is so low that many employers claim they cannot find workers. Yet, the major goals of Abenomics set at the beginning, such as 2% inflation rate and 2% real economic growth, have not been achieved. Has Abenomics really succeeded? What challenges remain?  

Speaker Bio: Takeo Hoshi is Professor in the Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo. He is the former Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Professor of Finance (by courtesy) at the Graduate School of Business, and Director of the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), all at Stanford University. He served in these roles until August 2019  Prior to 2012, Professor Hoshi was Pacific Economic Cooperation Professor in International Economic Relations at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).  His book titled Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan: The Road to the Future (MIT Press, 2001), co-authored with Anil Kashyap (Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago), received the Nikkei Award for the Best Economics Books of 2002. His other publications include, “Japanese Government Debt and Sustainability of Fiscal Policy” (with Takero Doi and Tatsuyoshi Okimoto), Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, 2011; “Corporate Restructuring in Japan during the Lost Decade” (with Satoshi Koibuchi and Ulrike Schaede), “Japan’s Bubble, Deflation, and Long-term Stagnation,” MIT Press, 2011 (Koichi Hamada, Anil K Kashyap, and David E. Weinstein, eds.); “Will the U.S. Bank Recapitalization Succeed? Eight Lessons from Japan” (with Anil Kashyap), Journal of Financial Economics, 2010; and “Zombie Lending and Depressed Restructuring in Japan” (joint with Ricardo Caballero and Anil Kashyap), American Economic Review, December 2008.  Hoshi received his BA in social sciences from the University of Tokyo in 1983, and a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988.