Richard Koo

Below, INET's Rob Johnson interviews Richard Koo, Chief Economist at Nomura and author of the 2009 book "The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics, Revised Edition: Lessons from Japans Great Recession" on how his theory on the Japanese…

Richard Koo was on Bloomberg yesterday making a lot of good points about what public sector retrenchment will mean, namely a decrease in private sector savings. With households already highly indebted in many countries, this cannot be a…

In my post Koo, White, Soros and Akerloff videos from inaugural INET conference I highlighted four speeches from the recent George Soros-sponsored pow-wow. I have already written up a post based on the one by William White in "The…

These videos are from the Inaugural Institute of New Economic Thinking (INET) conference in Cambridge. Hat Tip Mark Thoma.

Most of us have about 20 years to secure our retirement - from our mid 40s to our mid 60s. That has been an absolute disaster for my generation, with inflation-adjusted returns on a global equity portfolio being down about 23% over the past…

Edward wrote a piece about Japan’s government net asset value falling below zero. He thought it would make sense if I gave you an alternative view using Richard Koo’s latest thinking about the Japanese experience, especially given the…

Bloomberg reports: The Japanese government’s net assets in 2009 may have fallen below zero for the first time, the Nikkei newspaper reported, citing an unidentified government official. The result, which includes the central and…

Several notable economists prognosticated on what Japan should do to get out of their malaise in the 1990s but none of them understood the problem or the options available to the sovereign government. They all gave poor advice. The way…

When I read Ed’s recent piece “Japan: stimulus without reform leads to a policy cul de sac,” I couldn’t help but think he is wrong about Japan. Supporting aggregate demand The problem is taxes. In Japan, taxes are too high relative to the…

Wolfgang Munchau of the Financial Times wrote a very important comment piece in today’s Financial Times. In it he said that central banks are targeting asset prices to avoid the brunt of cyclical downturns. This policy is inducing asset…