Shimomura Fellowship

Development Bank of Japan Inc. (DBJ) offers non-Japanese researchers the Shimomura Fellowship established in 1990, named in honor of the late Dr. Osamu Shimomura, a noted Japanese economist.

The Shimomura Fellowship was established for the purpose of providing a study opportunity at DBJ to non-Japanese researchers engaged in the study of the Japanese economy, Japanese industry and related topics.

It is expected that fellowship recipients will benefit from exposure to on-going DBJ research activities and participation in joint research projects with DBJ staff. Through these activities it is hoped that the Shimomura Fellowship will advance the larger goals of promoting international exchange and deepening mutual understanding between Japan and other nations.

Osamu Shimomura was born in 1910 in Saga Prefecture. Upon graduation from the Economics Faculty of Tokyo Imperial University in 1934, he entered the Ministry of Finance. After serving in the United States, he became manager of the Research Department of the Price Bureau and became a member of the Policy Committee of the Bank of Japan. From 1960 to 1966, he served as a senior executive director of Japan Development Bank and as the first executive director of JDB’s Research Institute of Capital Formation from 1964 to 1974. Afterward, he became the chairman of Japan Economic Research Institute. During his long career as an economic scholar and critic, Dr. Shimomura rose to become Japan’s most influential postwar economist, founding a school of thought based on the “Shimomura Theory,” which attracted numerous followers.

Dr. Shimomura was well known for the development of a theory of economic growth based on a dynamic view of Keynesian economics. In the early postwar period, he was convinced of the value of the technological innovation then being produced and in the late 1950s entered the controversy over economic growth with a theory of high-rate economic growth. Applying a historical perspective to the postwar Japanese economy, Dr. Shimomura was the first to accurately predict the coming period of sustained high-rate economic growth. In the 1960s, Dr. Shimomura served as a top economic policy adviser in the Ikeda administration and helped set in place the income-doubling plan.

In the 1970s, Dr. Shimomura argued that the Japanese economy would slow down as it caught up with the other industrial economies of the U.S. and Europe. Following the first oil shock, he contended that a drop to zero growth was inevitable. Finally in the 1980s, Dr. Shimomura criticized U.S. fiscal deficits as a cause of the global economic imbalances and stressed the importance of disciplined economic management. Dr. Shimomura died in 1989.

Dr. Shimomura published numerous influential volumes and studies on economic topics, including Economic Fluctuation and Multiplier Analysis (1952), for which he was awarded a doctorate in economics. His major works are listed below:

1. 1.Keizai Hendo no Jyosu Bunseki, 1952 (Economic Fluctuation and Multiplier Analysis)
2. 2.Keizai Seicho Jitsugen no Tame ni, 1958 (Achieving Economic Growth)
3. 3.Nippon Keizai Seichoron, 1962 (A Theory of Japanese Economic Growth)
4. 4.Nippon Keizai wa Seicho suru, 1963 (The Japanese Economy Will Grow)
5. 5.Keizaitaikoku Nippon no Sentaku, 1971 (Japan’s Choices as a Major Economic Power)
6. 6.Zero Seicho Dasshutsu no Jyoken, 1976 (Conditions for Escaping from Zero Growth)
7. 7.Nippon Keizai no Setsudo, 1981 (Discipline and the Japanese Economy)
8. 8.Nippon wa Warukunai, 1987 (Japan Is Not at Fault)