Policy Research Domains (Major Policy Research Domains) I. Maintaining Economic Dynamism under the Adverse Demographic Conditions of Low Fertility and Aging Population

Fundamental Research for Creation of a Vibrant Economy and Society in Japan: From the perspectives of complexity

Project Leader/Sub-Leader

NISHIMURA Kazuo

NISHIMURA Kazuo Faculty Fellow

Leader

Overview

2010

In major fields such as the economy, social security, healthcare, education, employment, etc., Japan's conventional or ongoing systems are deadlocked. Stopgap measures are not the solution as they are only temporarily effective and they cost a lot.

Viewing Japan's economy and society as complex systems, we can find some intrinsic and preexisting conditions behind the phenomena. If we can change such intrinsic conditions, the dynamic movements generated from those systems could surely be improved.

This project is intended to implement a theoretical study of economic issues, from micro- to macroeconomic, using complexity theory and the approaches in nonlinear dynamics.

To study the target issues, this project focuses on the following two main points, among others. One is the impact on growth and stabilization of the economy comprised of heterogeneous economic agents, and the other is the impact on decision-making and economic growth generated by human resources.

With respect to the first point, we are going to carry out a basic analysis of the international correlation of business cycles; thereafter we will analyze the interlinkage of business cycles of the countries in terms of international trade in cases where there are relationships of interdependence through external effects among many countries.

With respect to the second point, we are going to pay attention to various factors of human resources and analyze the roles played by such factors in the context of economic growth and economic cycles. In particular, we intend to analyze the roles played by education and discuss possible models of ideal education systems. At the micro level, we intend to analyze how the way economic agents perceive things could impact their learning and decision-making, by means of measuring brain activity in individuals and other neuroeconomic methods.

October 25, 2010 - March 31, 2011

Major Research Results