IER NEWSLETTER Vol. 3 (2016/2/3) 

My research interests are in the areas macroeconomics, international trade and environmental economics.  I did my PhD from the LSE in 1984.  The bulk of my teaching career has been at the Delhi School of Economics from where I retired (early) in 2011.  I have also taught at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Chaimpaign (four years) and the LSE (two years).  I started off doing open economy macroeconomics under the supervision of Janet Yellen, finishing under Willem Buiter.  In my macroeconomic thinking, therefore, James Tobin looms large. At Illinois, I collaborated with Stephen Turnovsky on a number of papers.  Returning to India, I had to refashion a research agenda, since neither unemployment and the foreign exchange markets of the OECD type seemed relevant.  Doing a consistent macroeconomic analysis for India is hard, since the problem is unstructured.  During this time, I developed an interest in international trade and environmental economics.

 

Looking back over the last thirty-five years of my journey through economics.  I certainly feel that I could have done a lot more. But I am also (mildly) proud of the fact that I have not been swayed by fashion, and have stuck to a field even when "all but he had fled".  This, of course, makes one's intellectual journey very lonely.  My visit to IER was made possible by Professors Kitamura and Kurosaki.  At IER, I have been amazed by the quality of intervention in seminars.  It has reinforced my belief that Japanese economists are really first-class.  But social interaction with the colleagues at IER left something to be desired. I made peace with my environment by visiting all the good restaurants and bars in Kunitachi, with occasional forays into downtown Tokyo. In this I have been blessed by the overgenerous hospitality of Professor Kitamura.  

 

I will try and ensure that all the economists that I meet in the future--especially younger Indian colleagues--would be encouraged to visit IER.

Kazuko Kano (Musashino University) 2015/4/2-2016/3/18

Stacey H. Chen (Academia Sinica) 2015/4/2-2016/3/18

[Visiting Scholars]

Markus Heckel (Gooethe University Frankfurt) 2016/2/21-2016/3/21