Discussion:
In this session of our ongoing Japan: Year Ahead Series, join us as leading business thinkers Lyric Hughes Hale and Dr. Robert Madsen debate the effectiveness of Abenomics given the other structural challenges facing Japan such as a shrinking work force, an aging population, and limited foreign direct investment in developing new industries.  This evening promises a sparkling discussion of Abenomics seen from the US viewpoint full of wit and thoughtful analysis.
 
Lyric Hughes Hale is an analyst and contributor to a range of publications, including the Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Current History and Institutional Investor. China Takes Off, published in Foreign Affairs in 2003 and written jointly with her husband David Hale, is one of the most oft-cited surveys of China’s economic ascendency. Their newest publication, “What’s Next? Unconventional Wisdom on the Future of the World Economy” was published in 2011 by Yale University Press. She provides economic commentary for the Yale Books Blog in London, as well as the Huffington Post.
Ms. Hale has addressed audiences at the World Economic Forum, the Brookings Institution, the Aspen Ideas Festival, and the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in Tokyo. She has lectured at major universities and business schools including Stanford, Northwestern, Harvard and the University of Chicago.
Ms. Hale studied Japanese, Russian and French at Northwestern University, Italian at the Universita per Stranieri in Perugia, Italy, and graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. She has lived and studied in Europe, Japan and Iran. She first went to China in 1979, and has been a frequent visitor. As a life-long Asianist, her scholarly interests include Chinese monetary policy during the 1930’s, Iranian affairs, and the role of the media in developing countries, especially China.
Ms. Hale is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, the Australian- American Leadership Dialogue, and is a member of the board of governors of the Japan America Society of Chicago. She founded Women in International Trade (WIT), and was the first female president in the sixty-year history of the International Trade Club of Chicago. She serves on the advisory board of Pasfarda which encourages and supports cultural exchanges between the US and Iran.  She is a member of the board of the National Iranian American Council.
 
Robert Madsen works on East Asian and global politics and economics. He is also an advisor on China and Japan for a prominent macroeconomic hedge fund; a member of the Executive Council at Unison Capital, one of Japan’s premier private equity groups; and a consultant to a “super-major” oil company on such topics as the global financial crisis, Chinese economics, and relations between East Asia and the Middle East. Over the last year he additionally worked as senior advisor and economist for a fund-of-funds that focused on investments in East and Southeast Asia. Since 1997, Madsen has written the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Japan Country Reports and contributed occasionally to that company’s analysis of China and broader East Asia. He consults regularly for a range of government agencies, including in recent years two economics ministries, a foreign ministry and a central bank. Before joining MIT in 2004, he was a fellow at Stanford University’s Asia-Pacific Research Center, Asia Strategist at Soros Private Funds Management, and an advisor to the Robert M. Bass Group on its investments in Japanese real estate. Still earlier, he worked at McKinsey & Company as a management consultant, focusing on financial institutions and international commerce. He graduated from Harvard University’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and then entered Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, where he studied under the faculty of International Relations and earned a master’s degree, with distinction, and a doctorate. He also holds a J.D., with distinction, from Stanford Law School and is a member of the California State Bar. Having spent over ten years abroad, he is fluent in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese.

Program Agenda:

5:30-6:00: Registration

6:00-7:30: Presentation / Audience Q&A

7:30-8:00: Reception with light refreshments / Networking

 
Early registration by Tuesday, May 28, 2013 at midnight:

• $10 for Students, Japan Society & Asia Society Members (Must show Student ID at time of check-in)
• $15 for Nonmembers
• No refunds after May 28th

 
At the Door:

• $20 / For all tickets

 
 Please click here to register.
 

Collaborators:

The Japan Society kindly thanks Union Bank for their generous support for this program.

 
*Selected Japan Society program.