The Association's activities currently cover all the areas of economics including economic theory and mathematical economics, economic policy in general, public economics and finance, monetary economics and policy, international trade and finance, industrial organization, urban and regional economics, economic development, agricultural economics, econometrics and economic statistics. The Association plays the central role of promoting academic research in economics in Japan not only in its size but also in its coverage. The membership consists of academic economists as well as researchers affiliated with government/private institutions. These are currently 3,063 individual as well as 19 institutional memberships (as of January 2004).

The Association is managed by the General Meeting, a Board of Directors consisting of about 40 elected members, and a Standing Executive Committee. The President is elected by two-step votes every year: the Board of Directors nominates some candidates for the Vice-President, among whom one is elected for the position by a poll of all members, and the Vice-President automatically takes over the President's position in the next year. The Presidents for 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 were Kazuo NISHIMURA (Kyoto University), Masahiro OKUNO-FUJIWARA (University of Tokyo), Hiroshi YOSHIKAWA (University of Tokyo), Tatsuo HATTA (University of Tokyo), Takatoshi ITO (University of Tokyo), and Toshiaki Tachibanaki (Kyoto University) respectively.

The main activities of the Association consist of publishing four times a year The Japanese Economic Review in English and Gendai Keizaigaku no Choryu (Current Trends in Economics) in Japanese once a year, holding biannual meetings, and cosponsoring meetings of the Econometric Society when the World Congress or its Far Eastern Meetings are held in Japan.