Profile
Tsutomu Watanabe
Professor
Graduate School of Economics
University of Tokyo
Education
University of Tokyo, B.A. in Economics, Mar 1982
Harvard University, Ph.D. in Economics, Mar 1992
Professional Positions
Bank of Japan, 1982-1999
Hitotsubashi University, Institute of Economic Research, Associate Professor, 1999-2002
Hitotsubashi University, Institute of Economic Research, Professor, 2002-2011
University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics, Professor, Oct 2011-present
Columbia University, Center on Japanese Economy and Business, Research Associate, 2008-present
Kyoto University, Visiting Associate Professor, 2000
Bocconi University, Visiting Professor, 2004
Canon Institute for Global Studies, Research Director, Jan 2011-present
Research Field
Macroeconomics, International Finance, Corporate Finance
Research Theme
My main research area is monetary policy and inflation dynamics. I have published a series of papers on monetary policy when nominal interest rates are bounded at zero; in particularly, my paper on the optimal monetary policy at the zero lower bound has been widely recognized as the first paper to provide a simple description of the liquidity trap and characterize the optimal policy response to it in a setting of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium. As for inflation dynamics, I have been engaged in empirical analysis on the source of price stickiness using micro price data. I was Project Leader of a five-year JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Creative Scientific Research project commenced in 2006 on “Understand Inflation Dynamics of the Japanese Economy: An Approach Integrating Microeconomic Behaviors and Aggregate Fluctuations”.