President and Chief Research Officer of Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry; Professor of Konan University; and Adjunct Professor of Institute of Economic Research at Kyoto University. Member of the Japan Academy (2010-).
He had previously served as Professor in the Department of Economics / Regional Science at the University of Pennsylvania; Professor of the Institute of Economic Research at Kyoto University; and President of the Institute of Developing Economies - JETRO (2003-2007). He had also served as the President of Japanese Economic Association (2009-2010). He holds a PhD in regional science from the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching interests are urban economics, regional economics, international trade, and spatial economics. His major works include: Urban Economic Theory, Cambridge University Press,1989; The Spatial Economy: Cities, Regions, and International Trade, MIT Press, 1999 (with P. Krugman and A.J. Venables); Economics of Agglomeration: Cities, Industrial Location, and Regional Growth, Cambridge University Press, 2002 (with J. Thisse); Regional Integration in East Asia: From the Viewpoint of Spatial Economics (editor), Macmillan, 2007.
