A History of Japanese Developments in Econometrics

In Japan the systematic collection of economic data, including the prices of such commodities as rice, started for policy purposes in the sixteenth century. Yet such external impacts as the Tokyo meeting of the International Statistical Institute (1930) and the visit of two founding members of the Econometric Society (established 1930) to Japan were instrumental in promoting statistical studies and inspiring Japanese students to study abroad. Eiichi Sugimoto was trained in Berlin and drew a shifting demand curve for rice over time in a three-dimensional space in 1935. After World War II, Shinichi Ichimura, Michio Hatanaka, and Takeshi Amemiya were trained in the United States and introduced to empirical studies. Ichimura became responsible for building macroeconometric models and input-output tables for the Japanese and other East Asian economies. Hatanaka and Amemiya contributed to a more advanced econometrics thanks to the abundant use of U.S. economic data.