By KAZUO NISHIMURA Institute of Economic Research, Kyoto University
The JEA (Japanese Economic Association)-Nakahara Prize was initiated in 1995 and is funded by a donation from Mr Nobuyuki Nakahara. The Prize was established to honour young economists under the age of 45 who have achieved internationally recognized research.
We are pleased to announce that the 1998 JEA-Nakahara Prize has been awarded to Professor Kiyohiko G. Nishimura. Born in 1953, he took his BA from the University of Tokyo in 1975 and his PhD from Yale University in 1982. At present, he is Professor of Economics at the University of Tokyo.
Professor Nishimura has made several outstanding contributions in the areas of microeconomic foundations of macroeconomics, economic dynamics and economics of distribution. First, he provided a new framework for assessing structural as well as stabilization policies in an economy where information is heterogeneous. Second, Nishimura presented new stability conditions of multi-sector multi-capital-stocks optimal growth. Third, Nishimura virtually started the macroeconomic analysis of the Japanese distribution system. He showed that Japanese aggregate distribution margin ratio (the ratio of distribution margins to the final price) of consumer goods is about the same as in the United States, and suggested that high producer prices are the major culprit of high Japanese consumer prices. This study was widely cited, and in¯uenced not only economic but also political discussion concerning the Japanese distribution system both in Japan and in the United States. His main works are as follows:
“Rational Expectations and Price Rigidity in a Monopolistically Competitive Market”, Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 53 (1986), pp. 283 -92.
“Indexation and Monopolistic Competition in Labor Markets”, European Economic Review, Vol. 33 (1989), pp. 1605 -23.
Imperfect Competition, Differential Information and Microfoundations of Macroeconomics, 230 pages, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
“On Uniqueness of a Steady State and Convergence of Optimal Paths in Multisector Models of Optimal Growth with a Discount Rate”, Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 24 (1981), pp. 157-67.
“The Distribution System of Japan and the United States: A Comparative Study from the Viewpoint of Final-Goods Buyers”, Japan and the World Economy, Vol. 6 (1993), pp. 265- 88.
Selection Committee
Kazuo Nishimura,
Kyoto University (Chairman)
Michio Hatanaka, Tezukayama University (1997 President of the JAEE)
James Friedman, University of North Carolina
Jean-Michel Grandmont, CREST
Dale Jorgenson, Harvard University
Masahiro Okuno-Fujiwara, University
of Tokyo
Takatoshi Ito, Hitotsubashi University