Long Finance Conference 2015: The Curious Case Of Japan: Why Macroeconomics Needs A Rethink

Long Finance Conference 2015: The Curious Case Of Japan: Why Macroeconomics Needs A Rethink
Conference

Long Finance conferences have often questioned whether macroeconomics provides falsifiable theories. This conference focused on an important clash between theory and practice, Japan. Professor Richard Werner has catalogued the repeated failures of Keynesians, monetarists, and other macroeconomic schools to explain the Japanese economy’s performance when Japan was the world's second-largest economy. He believes this inability to comprehend Japan calls into doubt the authority of traditional macroeconomics and he puts forward a more coherent theory which concludes that economists have to understand money before they move on to macroeconomics. George Edwards tries learning from the Japanese, in particular Dr Osamu Shimomura’s work on why investment credit debt can be good for the economy, and how the Shimomuran amendment to the Keynesian saving-Investment equilibrium condition can provide a route to faster economic development. Their presentations will be followed by a panel discussion with John Greenwood OBE, chaired by Michael Mainelli.

Useful links

Michael Mainelli's presentation - "The Study Of Money May Be The Root Of Much Madness"
George Tait Edwards' presentation - "The Curious Case of The Economist the West Forgot - The Life and Times of Dr Osamu Shimomura"
Richard Werners' presentation - "Lessons We can Learn from the Success of the Japanese Growth System"

About the speakers

George Tait Edwards’ MBE speciality is the historical unfolding of investment credit economics in the USA, Japan and China, and the essential machinery of government that produces economic growth.

Professor Richard Werner is a monetary and development economist at the University of Southampton, Director of its Centre for Banking, Finance and Sustainable Development, who coined the term “quantitative easing” and warned about the “recurring banking crises”, including in Europe, in his 2003 book 'Princes of the Yen', and his 2005 book 'New Paradigm in Macroeconomics'. He is a member of the ECB Shadow Council.

Chief Economist at INVESCO plc, John Greenwood OBE is a director of INVESCO Asia Ltd in Hong Kong, INVESCO Asset Management Singapore Ltd, and the Hong Kong Association in London.