FUTI Director Professor Koichi Hamada Appointed as Special Advisor to the Abe Cabinet

KoichiHamadaPrime Minister Shinzo Abe of LDP, who recently returned to power, decided on December 16th to appoint Professor Emeritus Koichi Hamada of Yale University, a specialist of international finance theory, as Special Advisor (on Economics) to his new Cabinet. Mr. Abe will seek Prof. Hamada’s advice on economic policies and international finance in order to get out of deflation.
As an anti-deflationary strategy, Mr. Abe announced his plan earlier to enter an agreement with the Bank of Japan (BOJ) on a policy that should allow him to carry out bold monetary easing by determining an inflation target. Mr. Masaaki Shirakawa, the Governor of BOJ, and the past prime minister Yoshihiko Noda were strongly opposed to Mr. Abe’s opinion and engaged in a dispute about the propriety of his assertion.
At that time, Professor Hamada reportedly sent a fax letter to encourage Mr. Abe, by saying “After all, the BOJ’s course of actions turned out to be unsuccessful. Mr. Abe’s statement is totally correct.” Prof. Hamada met with Mr. Abe in the LBS Headquarters on December 10th and gave him advice on economic policies.

(Sankei News, December 17, 2012)


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