Masato Shizume - The Japanese Economy During the Great Depression: The Emergence of Macroeconomic Policy in A Small and Open Economy, 1931–1936

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Editorial Board:

Loren Brandt (University of Toronto, Canada)

Myung Soo Cha (Yeungnam University, Korea)

Nicholas Crafts (University of Warwick, UK)

Claude Diebolt (University of Strasbourg, France)

Barry Eichengreen (University of California at Berkeley, USA)

Stanley Engerman (University of Rochester, USA)

Price V. Fishback (University of Arizona, USA)

Avner Greif (Stanford University, USA)

Tirthanker Roy (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK)

Osamu Saito (Hitotsubashi University, Japan)

Jochen Streb (University of Mannheim, Germany)

Nikolaus Wolf (Humboldt University, Germany)

(in alphabetical order)

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Korekiyo in his garden, 1930, by courtesy of Yasushi Inoue

This book project began sometime around 2000, when I was working for the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies (IMES), Bank of Japan (BOJ). One day, I had a conversation with Masaaki Shirakawa, then head of the Policy Planning Office and later governor of the BOJ (20082013), about the lessons to be learned from Takahashi Korekiyos policies. Mr. Shirakawa asked me what lessons the central bank today could derive from Takahashis experience during the Great Depression. I replied that to answer that question, we would need further research on the challenges Takahashi faced, Takahashis intentions, and the similarities and differences between Takahashis time and today.

Two decades have since passed. During this time, I have published several papers in English and Japanese, written a book on Takahashis policies in the 1930s in Japanese (Shizume 2009), and translated Takahashis biography, originally written in English (Smethurst 2007), into Japanese. These tasks gave me the opportunity to dig into new archival materials, construct new data sets for econometric analyses, obtain new insights, and raise new questions. I also, in 2014, left the BOJ to take up a position at Waseda University. The new environment provided me a fresh perspective for my research.

When I finished my book in Japanese in 2009, I thought it might be a good idea to rewrite it in English. I also thought I would share the data set I had constructed and add more econometric analysis to further explore the nature of Takahashis policies to introduce his achievements to a broader audience. Thanks to the cooperation of Springer Nature, I have completed my thesis in English. The full data set used in this volume is available on the website of the Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration (RIEB), Kobe University.