CIRJE Conferences 2023

Tokyo Labor Economics Workshop: One-Day Conference
Organizer Suk Joon Son, Daiji Kawaguchi
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Overview The One-day Conference of Tokyo Labor Economics Workshop, held on March 8th, 2024 at the University of Tokyo, was successfully concluded. The workshop featured insightful sessions on education, labor market, and health. The morning sessions delved into significant educational research, including the dynamics of school choice, peer effects in education, and inequality among children. Afternoon discussions transitioned to labor market topics, highlighting the impacts of factory automation, anti-sweatshop activism, and public pension programs on local labor markets, wage distribution, and short-term mortality, respectively. This gathering of academics working in related areas facilitated a rich exchange of feedback on respective research and also new ideas, contributing substantially to the field of labor economics.

Japanese Economic Review Conference “Demographic Change and Wellbeing in Japan and Asian Economies”
Organizer Yasuyuki Sawada
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Navigating Commodities: Production, Markets, and Consumption in History
Organizer Koji Yamamoto
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Program Click Here
Overview ‘Navigating Commodities’ took place over the weekend of 18-19 November 2023 in the Conference Room (2F) of Kojima Hall. We brought together historians specializing in a range of commodities, from staples such as rice to modern innovations such as skin creams. The papers presented explored how the history of commodities in different temporal and regional contexts answers broader questions about power, knowledge and social change, and many of the papers approached these themes from angles, including economic and business history, global and imperial history, and history of science and environmental history. After receiving an overwhelming number of abstracts, the organizers selected the most competitive submissions from 14 academics (from PhD candidates to junior and senior faculty) from around the world, including institutions in Japan, the United States, Europe, India, China, Malaysia and Hong Kong. The papers were organised into four coherent panels: ‘Nature as Commodity: Plants, Sea, and Environment’; ‘Textiles and Transformations: From Local Craftsmanship to Global Markets’; ‘Consumable Commodities and Cultural Adaptations: Tea and Rice in East and Southeast Asia’; and ‘Objectification and Representation: Commodities and Bodies in Social and Political Contexts’. We also had an excellent keynote presentation by Professor Ai Hisano of the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, who spoke about the history of the senses, aesthetics and capitalism in modern Japan and the United States. The two-day conference was truly a fantastic opportunity for both the speakers and the audience, who were exposed to excellent, often humorous papers on a variety of commodities, providing ample opportunity for fruitful networking that will no doubt lead to further collaborative opportunities.

Japan Korea Joint Economic Seminar
Organizer Taiji Furusawa
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Overview Ten groups of undergraduate students from the University of Tokyo (Sawada seminar and Furusawa Seminar), Waseda University (2 groups), Keio University, Gakushuin University, Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Korea University, and Ewha Womans University gather and present their own research. It was quite fruitful not just because of its grass-root aspect of the forum but also for the presentation and discussion of various important topics in economics.

Workshop Series on The Replication of Empirical Research Replicability
Organizer Yasuyuki Sawada and Chishio Furukawa
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Overview Between September 12 and 20, we invited Professor Lars Vilhuber, the inaugural Data Editor of the American Economic Association (AEA), and conducted a workshop series on the replication of empirical research. Replicability has long been recognized as an important criterion for trustworthy social science practices and has received increased attention since the AEA adopted the Data Editor system, which verifies the code and data of all published papers of their journal. This series included two lectures, one at the University of Tokyo and the other at the Japanese Economic Association's Meeting at Kansai University, as well as two training workshops, one at Osaka University and the other at the University of Tokyo, co-organized by Katsuya Takii, Mai Seki, and Taiyo Fukai.
The aim of this workshop series was to provide an opportunity to learn about the issues of research reproducibility and the concrete techniques to ensure it. The lecture covered several key aspects, including (i) a reflection on the history of discussions surrounding replicability, (ii) an introduction to the recent evolution of institutional requirements for replicability, and (iii) provided concrete examples of papers with replication packages. Furthermore, it offered (iv) concrete suggestions for institutional support that can promote and ensure research reproducibility. The workshop training sessions included (i) programming practices for reproducibility and (ii) the computing environment, which encompassed package management. These sessions also (iii) discussed concrete steps that the Japanese research community can take to enhance research reproducibility and received advice and comments from Professor Vilhuber.

Infrastructure and Urban Development in the Developing World / Using Remote Sending Data and Machine Learning Algorithms for Accessibility Indicators of the SDGs
Organizer Yasuyuki Sawada
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Overview On August 22nd and 23rd, we organized the conference titled 'Infrastructure and Urban Development in the Developing World' in collaboration with esteemed partner, the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It is with great honor that we address the distinguished attendees of this noteworthy conference. We extended invitations to internationally renowned scholars, including Professor Jiles Duranton of the University of Pennsylvania, Professor Melanie Morten of Stanford University, and Professor Tomoya Mori of Kyoto University. On August 24th, we conducted an accompanying workshop entitled 'Utilizing Remote Sensing Data and Machine Learning Algorithms for Accessibility Indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),' where policymakers and practitioners were graciously invited to participate. I am pleased to report that these events were executed with great success and featured vibrant and insightful discussions.