Workshop on economic and financial analysis of commodity markets

The Australia-Japan Research Centre (AJRC) at Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University and the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) co-host an academic workshop bringing together Australian, Japanese and other specialists to present papers on commodity markets. More specifically, this workshop will discuss recent financial and economic analyses on commodity markets in order to support valuation, risk management strategies and investment decision making on commodities.

Organiser: Tatsuyoshi Okimoto, ANU/RIETI

Frontiers in macroeconomics and macroeconometrics

The Australia-Japan Research Centre (AJRC) at the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University and the Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study (HIAS) at the Hitotsubashi University, are co-hosting a joint workshop bringing together Australian, Japanese, and other specialists to present papers on macroeconomics with some focus on Japan.

Organisers:

Tatsuyoshi Okimoto, ANU; Toshiaki Watanabe, Hitotsubashi University.

Participants (Speakers, Chairs):

Japan, Australia and the new regional economic order workshop

What kind of a leadership role can Australia and Japan play in the Asia Pacific region at a time of immense change?

How can regional mechanisms like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) succeed amidst an emerging wave of anti-globalisation sentiment?

Following the demise of the TPP and given the election of President Donald Trump in the US, how can Japan and Australia pursue their mutual trade and integration interests in this new trade environment?

Japan's secular stagnation and monetary policy

Since the end of the 1990s, Japan has been in a period of secular stagnation with a decline in the natural rate of interest. The natural rate of interest, first advocated by Swedish scholar Knut Wicksell in the 19th century, means the interest rate consistent with stable inflation without any shocks to demand and supply. When the natural rate turns negative it becomes highly difficult for monetary policy alone to guide the real interest rate below the negative natural rate.

Innovation and intellectual property in Australia and Japan

Boosting innovation will be key to maintaining prosperity in Australia and Japan. What policies should governments pursue? How can intellectual property (IP) regimes help or hinder innovation?

The macroeconomic effects of Japan’s unconventional monetary policies

Japan is the country with the longest history of implementing unconventional monetary policies, which were first introduced fifteen years ago and have since been expanded several times. A case in point is the quantitative and qualitative monetary easing (QQE) policy introduced by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) in early 2013 along with the commitment to continue with the program as long as necessary to achieve the BOJ’s 2 per cent price stability target.

Do municipal mergers internalise spatial spillover effects?

The first AJRC seminar for 2017 will be held on Wednesday 15 February in Seminar Room 2 at the Crawford School. A light lunch will be provided. If you would like to attend, please RSVP by Monday 13 February.

Japan Update 2016

The Australia–Japan Research Centre and the ANU Japan Institute will once again co-host the annual Japan Update.

The theme of the Update this year is Reinventing Japan and is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of Japan’s current economic, social and political landscape, and to give an ‘update’ on Japan’s recent developments and future directions.

This year will focus on three key areas: Will Womenomics succeed?, new economic challenges, and Japan’s place in the world.

Presenters and discussants include:

Evaluation of the fiscal effect on municipal mergers in Japan

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a fiscal common pool problem in Japanese municipal mergers. Specifically, we investigated whether the merged municipalities rapidly their increase expenditures and debt just before mergers. Because the likelihood of Japanese municipal mergers depends on a municipality’s characteristics such as population size, area, and fiscal conditions, municipal mergers are a non-voluntary and non-random phenomenon in Japan.