1998 Reports

The Development of Studies of the Japanese Economy in the United States: A Personal Odyssey

Patrick, Hugh T.

This is essentially a personal reminiscence rather than a comprehensive or objective evaluation of the development of the study of the Japanese economy in the United States since the end of World War II. As such, it reflects my own research odyssey. It is weighted more heavily toward the earlier years and most of the people mentioned are those active when the field was first developing in the 1950s and early '60s — that is, my generation and our teachers. (It is a pleasure to note many of us are still active. I apologize to those not mentioned, as well as those mentioned but not described adequately.) The expository style is deliberately informal. After all, I am writing about friends. I trace five interrelated themes: the emergence of Japanese economic studies as a field; the development of core personnel engaged in teaching courses and doing research on the Japanese economy; the increasingly complex and beneficial interaction between Japan-based and US-based economists; the attracting of a number of outstanding American economists who are not specialists on the Japanese economy into comparative research; and the evolving research agenda of the past 50 years.