Dr. Yukihiro Ikeda
Professor
Economic History and History of Economic Thought
Keio University
Dear Professor Ikeda,
I am writing this letter to express my interest in attending Keio University within Economic History. I would be more than grateful if you could give it a consideration.
Abstract – Nowadays North American Economics is prominent, but it used be German Economics and thought which progressive scholars crossed the ocean and studied. But no need to be pessimistic, 3 major economic theories in the world are A) the Keynesian, B) the Friedmanite, and C) the Fisherianthere that that still constitute the foundation of economic studies. In fact, there are many recent papers and journals putting spotlight on the originals especially because Germany has always maintained relatively high level of employment rate in contrast of economic crisis in the west since 2008. Given the struggling Japan’s economy, it’s worth it to revisit how the German miracle happened after the WWⅡ and nurtured its level of economy trailing Japan, US and competing China, India etc.
Question – What are the economic theories coming from the historic schools that kept its sway and did it serve to build foundation of North American prosperity?
Methodology – Revisit Germany’s post war economic history and look into how classic theories or general way of thinking economics impacted western economic studies.
Findings – A number of historical schools developed in the nineteenth century. And they operated under the belief that history of economic thought was the key source of knowledge of human actions and economic matters. To everyone’s knowledge. economics is culture-specific, hence not generalizable over space and time. In example, how Japan and Germany nurtured its economy to rise from the war ruins, was very culture and circumstantially specific. This includes, independent central bank, removing cartel or monopoly, social welfare to provide everyone a chance, bringing clarity onto currency value to provide incentive for people to work, focusing on exportable manufacturing and so on.
Summary – Countries such as Japan and US copied part of German policies and applied neoliberalism theories to accelerate economic growth. Even though many historic schools have disappeared, their way of thinking is very much alive supporting some of the world’s largest economies. I believe modern economic study cannot be done without understanding the past, and I would be delighted to join the school and study more about various theories in depth. I very much look forward to hearing from you on this matter.
Sincerely yours,
*Joseph Dorfman, The American Economic Review, Vol. 45, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Sixty-seventh Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May, 1955), pp. 17-28 *”From New Liberalism to Neoliberalism: Japanese Economists and the Welfare State Before the 1980s” in: LIBERALISM & THE WELFARE STATE, edited by Roger E. Backhouse,Bradley W.Bateman,Tamotsu Nishizawa and Dieter Plehwe, Tamotsu Nishizawa and Yukihiro Ikeda（OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS) 75 – 97 2017年
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