Welcome to Takashi Kurosaki's Homepage

Last revision: April 11, 2024

What's New?

New English working and published papers added (April 11, 2024)
Corrigenda for Comparative Economic Development in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, 2017 (April 11, 2024)

CV revised (August 22, 2023)
"Poverty Reduction, Institutions, Markets, and Policies in Developing Countries: Toward a Theory of Comparative Economic Development (PRIMCED)" Research Project web page launched (Nov 16, 2010)
Photos from Myanmar Villages (Photos added on October 11, 2002)
Field Trip to Pakistan (October 11, 2002)
Introduction to my recent Japanese works# (Jan. 9, 2002)
Link to "Photo Essays from South Asia" (Mariamma's page) (August 29, 2001)
Trip to Pakistani Villages (June 18, 2001)
Trip to the ICRISAT Villages in India (June 18, 2001)
Amartya Sen's book translated# (March 21, 2000) #=Sorry, Japanese only!
Everything is new (December 13, 1999)

Hi! My name is Takashi Kurosaki (or call me "Tak" for short). I am professor of economics at the Institute of Economic Research (IER) of Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo.

My interests are on microeconometric analysis of development issues in Asia, especially, the household behavior of rural dwellers facing risk. I prefer to do field work in villages. I have implemented several field surveys in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar (visit this page for photos from Myanmar). Currently, I am implementing village surveys in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan (related with CBO-based development, flood recovery, etc.), Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi, India (related with weather insurance, primary education, migration, etc.), and Gaibandha, Bangladesh (related with microfinance). The surveys in India and Pakistan were conducted under a research project "Poverty Reduction, Institutions, Markets, and Policies in Developing Countries: Toward a Theory of Comparative Economic Development (PRIMCED)", which was a five year project from 2010/11 to 2014/15. Visit my page on papers in English for working papers related with these projects. Meanwhile, the photo above was taken together with myself in the center and villagers at one of my study villages in Sheikhupura, Punjab, Pakistan (Sept. 1996).

I have also family home pages here. You can visit the pages of my hobby, philately, here.

English Publications

Photos from the Field, Pakistan

Photos from the Field, India

Photos from the Field, Myanmar

Photo Essays from South Asia

Mariamma's South Asia Information HP

At Hitotsubashi: Hitotsubashi University is located on a suburban area of Tokyo called Kunitachi City. I love the campus because there are many beautiful and old buildings surrounded by trees. Although the outside of the campus is now fully developed as a residential area, the campus is like a small forest.

The IER of Hitotsubashi University is an attached research institution and runs the graduate school of economics jointly with the Econ Department of Hitotsubashi University. I teach graduate-level lecture courses on "Development Economics Theory" and "Development Policy Analysis." I also organize a couple of workshops and seminars on economic development and growth.

The IER has a tradition of conducting empirical analysis of long-term economic growth in Japan and Asia. The Long-Term Economic Statistics (LTES) of Japan was compiled by our institute. We have completed a research project to compile long-term economic statistics of Asian countries in a comparative framework (so-called "COE-ASHSTAT project"). Building on this project, we implemented a project in 2003-2008 to conduct leading-edge research in the social sciences by integrating the compilation of a comprehensive database, statistical theory, and empirical analysis. This project is called "Hi-Stat". I was a member of this project belonging to the micro analysis team and the historical data analysis team. I also edited its newsletters.

In 2008, a new research project named "Research Unit for Statistical and Empirical Analysis in Social Sciences" was initiated. This is one of the Global Center of Excellence (COE) programs. We aim at establishing a globally unique education and research base within the five-year span (2008-2012) of the program. This project is called G-COE Hi-Stat and I am a member of its micro analysis team.

For the period from April 2010 to March 2016, I served as the research director of The Center for Economic Institutions (CEI), a research center within IER. Using this center as the base, we implemented a research project "Poverty Reduction, Institutions, Markets, and Policies in Developing Countries: Toward a Theory of Comparative Economic Development". This was a five year project from 2010/11 to 2014/15, funded by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S). This project was called PRIMCED and I was its project leader.

My Research Interests: I studied at the Food Research Institute, Stanford University for my doctoral degree. I obtained Ph.D. in 1995 with the dissertation titled "Risk Attitudes, Consumption Preferences, and Crop Choices in Pakistan," under the supervision of Prof. Marcel Fafchamps. Since then, I have been working on microeconometric analysis of development issues in India, Pakistan, and Myanmar, especially, the household behavior of rural dwellers facing risk.

I published papers and reports on topics such as agriculture in these countries, poverty issues, risk diversification, irrigation, institutions in rural economy, etc. Please visit publications in English. Working in Japan, I have published also in Japanese language, for which you may visit my Japanese pages if you have a Japanese html viewer (I have just published a research book titled "Hinkon to Zeijakusei no Keizai Bunseki" [Economic Analysis of Poverty and Vulnerability] in Japanese).

Before I moved to my current position at Hitotsubashi, I worked for the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE), Tokyo, Japan, for more than a decade. The IDE is the largest research center in Japan on developing countries with more than 150 permanent research staffs specialized in a specific developing country or in a specific development issue. I owe most of my research discipline to this institute.

In 2001, I was affiliated with Economic Growth Center, Yale University, as a visiting fellow. I really appreciate the hospitality there, especially from Prof. Christopher Udry. In 2008/09, I stayed at the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department, University of California, Berkeley as a visiting fellow. Thanks to Prof. Ethan Ligon and other ARE faculty and staff, I had a very productive time there. From April to June 2009, I visited the Economics Program, Research School of Social Sciences (now the Research School of Economcis), Australian National University, where I really enjoyed the Southern Hemisphere hosplitality. Many, many thanks again for all who kindly helped me duruing these stays.

In 2016-17, I spent 11 months in Delhi, India, as visiting professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University. It was a period with many exciting events, especially Demonetisation in November 2016. See my publication pages for some of research results based on this sabbatical.

From April 2021 to March 2023, I served as the Director of IER. After finishing this administration work, I am now fully back to research.

Please E-mail me for comments and questions. You can reach me at:

kurosaki at ier dot hit-u dot ac dot jp

Just change "at" to @ and "dot" to . and remove the spaces. Sorry for inconvenience. This is to avoid the "spiders" that harvest email addresses for spammers.