Richard Koo – Keynote Speaker

Richard Koo is the Chief Economist of Nomura Research Institute, with responsibilities to provide independent economic and market analysis to Nomura Securities, the leading securities house in Japan, and its clients. Before joining Nomura in 1984, Mr. Koo, a US citizen, was an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (1981-84). Prior to that, he was a Doctoral Fellow of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1979-81). In addition to conducting financial market research, he has also advised several Japanese prime ministers on how best to deal with Japan’s economic and banking problems.

In addition to being one of the first non-Japanese to participate in the making of Japan’s 5-year economic plan, the Taiwanese-American was also the only non-Japanese member of the Defense Strategy Study Conference of the Japan Ministry of Defense for 1999-2011. Currently he is serving as a Senior Advisor to Center for Strategic and International Studies (Washington D.C.). He is also an Advisory Board Member of Institute for New Economic Thinking (N.Y.C.), and a regular contributor to Economics by Invitation, The Economist.

Author of many books on Japanese economy, his latest book “The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics – Lessons from Japan’s Great Recession” (John Wiley & Sons, 2008) has been translated into and sold in four different languages. Mr. Koo holds BAs in Political Science and Economics from the University of California at Berkeley (1976), and MA in Economics from the Johns Hopkins University (1979). From 1998 to 2010, Richard Koo was a visiting professor at Waseda University in Tokyo.

In financial circles, Richard Koo was ranked 1st among over 100 economists covering Japan in the Nikkei Financial Ranking for 1995, 1996 and 1997, and by the Institutional Investor magazine for 1998. He was also ranked 1st by Nikkei Newsletter on Bond and Money for 1998, 1999 and 2000. He was awarded the Abramson Award by the National Association for Business Economics (Washington D.C.) for the year 2001.

Mr. Koo, a native of Kobe, Japan, is married with two children.