Research Director Keiichiro Kobayashi was one of four economists named to join a panel of experts advising the prime minister on the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis.

The announcement was made on May 12 at a press conference by Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura. The other economists to join the Advisory Committee on the Basic Action Policy will be Fumio Otake of Osaka University, Yoko Ibuka of Keio University, and Shunpei Takemori of Keio University.

Kobayashi was one of the two principal authors of an emergency proposal, issued by the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research in mid-March, to address the economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis.

At the press conference, Nishimura, who is overseeing the government’s economic response to the epidemic, said the four economists were added to the panel—whose members had all been public health experts—out of a need to “protect both lives and livelihoods.”

• Members of the Advisory Committee on the Basic Action Policy (Japanese only)
  http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/ful/simon/kousei.pdf
• “Addressing the Economic Fallout from the Coronavirus Crisis: Emergency Proposals by Economists in Japan”
  https://www.tkfd.or.jp/en/research/detail.php?id=728
• Profile of Keiichiro Kobayashi
  https://www.tkfd.or.jp/en/experts/detail.php?id=23