Takatoshi Ito is an internationally renowned economist and expert on international finance, macroeconomics, and the Japanese economy. He served as a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy from 2006 to 2008. He also held senior positions in the Japanese Ministry of Finance and at the International Monetary Fund. Ito also served as Dean of the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy for the past two years and as a professor at Japan’s National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. He was also a visiting professor at both Columbia University and Harvard University. He frequently contributes op-ed columns and articles to the Financial Times and Nihon Keizai Shinbun. He earned his PhD in economics at Harvard University.
Ito has had distinguished academic and research appointments, and is an author of many books, including The Japanese Economy; The Political Economy of the Japanese Monetary Policy; and Financial Policy and Central Banking in Japan, with T. Cargill and M. Hutchison. He is also the author of more than 130 academic (refereed) journal articles in journals such as Econometrica, American Economic Review, and Journal of Monetary Economics and chapters in books on international finance, monetary policy, and the Japanese economy. His research interests include capital flows and currency crises, microstructures of foreign exchange rates, and inflation targeting. He was awarded the National Medal with Purple Ribbon in June 2011 for his excellent academic achievement.