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.