Naohiro Yashiro

Naohiro Yashiro is a specially appointed professor with the Faculty of Global Business at Showa Women’s University, and a visiting professor with the College of Liberal Arts at the International hristian University in Tokyo, Japan. In addition to his academic career, Yashiro has held positions with the Japanese Government’s Economic Planning Agency and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. He was president of the Japan Center for Economic Research in 2000, and he was a member of the Regulatory Reform Committee (advisory board on economic policy to the prime minister) from 1998 to 2006 and the Council of Economic and Fiscal Policy (directly appointed by Prime Ministers Abe and Fukuda) from 2006 to 2008.

Yashiro’s areas of research include labor economics, social security and Japanese economy. He has published widely in both Japanese and English. Some of his recent publications include The Economic Effects of Aging in the United States and Japan, co-edited with Michael D. Hurd (University of Chicago, 1997); Health Care Issues in the United States and Japan, co-edited with David A. Wise (University of Chicago, 2006); “The Silver Markets in Japan through Regulatory Reform” in The Silver Market Phenomenon, edited by Kohlbacher and Herstatt (Springer, 2007); “Economic Factors in the Declining Birth Rates” in The Demographic Challenge, edited by Coulmas and Conrad (Brill, 2008); “Myth about Japanese Employment Practices: An Increasing Insider–Outsider Conflict of Interests” in Contemporary Japan, vol. 23, no. 2 (2011); and “Human Capital in Japan’s Demographic Transition: Implications for Other Asian Countries” in Human Capital Formation and Economic Growth in Asia and the Pacific, edited by Wendy Dobson (Routledge, 2013).

Yashiro received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Maryland and bachelor’s degrees from both the University of Tokyo and the International Christian University.