Present and Future of Evolutionary Economics: Japanese Perspectives

This edited volume celebrates  a quarter-century’s anniversary of the foundation of the Japan Association for Evolutionary Economics (JAFEE) and proposes the future perspectives of evolutionary economics on the grounds of its achievements in Japan. When JAFEE was founded in 1997, hundreds of ambitious non-neo-classical economists gathered in this forum to advance new directions of economic research. Succeeding in 2004, JAFEE launched an international academic journal, Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review (EIER), which is now published by Springer.Evolutionary economics found rich soil for growth in Japan, where non-orthodox directions in economic theory and historical interest in the past masters’ works occupied a solid portion of economics academism. Evolutionary economics in Japan has grown with the collaboration of non-neoclassical economics including Marxian and post-Keynesian economics, agent-based modeling, complexity studies, comparative economic systems, and studies in industrial evolution. Combining the renovation of classical value theory as the micro-foundation of evolutionary economics is one of its most conspicuous achievements. Experimental methods are also used in the artificial domain, regional studies (community currencies), and other domains. Further, evolutionary ideas stimulated comparative analysis of national economies in the development and system transition. 

The variety of chapters in this volume reflects the broad perspective and the multiplicity of approaches to evolutionary economics in Japan, which thus stimulates its worldwide advance. 

Yagi Kiichiro (born in 1947): Professor emeritus at Kyoto University and Setsunan University. After studying sociology and economics at the University of Tokyo and Nagoya University, he worked in the history of economic thought and political economy, including Marxian economics and evolutionary economics. In the area of the history of economic thought, he published Austrian and German Economic Thought (Routledge, 2011) and Modern Japanese Economic Thought (Routledge, 2023). In political economy, he endeavored to renovate Marxian economics' intellectual heritage in the direction of evolutionary and institutional economics. He published a textbook on the modern Marxian political economy (in Japanese, 2007) and coauthored From Reproduction to Evolutionary Governance (Springer 2019). He was in the initial founding group of the Japan Association of Evolutionary Economics and served as its general secretary. He worked further as a member of the editorial board of Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review.  

Yoshinori Shiozawa (born in 1943): After studying mathematics at Kyoto University, Shiozawa turned to economics during his study abroad in France. From 1983 to 2007 he taught economics and urban studies at Osaka City University. After his retirement from it, he moved to Tokyo to teach at Chuo University, where he taught economics till 2015. He was known as a radical critic of the neo-classical mainstreams from his early works in the 1980s. He joined the Japan Association for Evolutionary Economics since its foundation and exerted theoretical influence on this society by editing the Handbook of Evolutionary Economics (in Japanese 2006). Recently he worked on the reconstruction of the classical theory of international value (Coed. A New Construction of Ricardian Theory of International Value, Springer, 2017) and on the microfoundation of evolutionary economics by the modern version of classical value theory (Coauthored, Microfoundation of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, 2019). 

Yuji Aruka (born in 1949): Doctor of Economics (Kyoto University). Professor em. of Chuo University, and specially appointed professor at Kyoto University of Advanced Science. Coordinating editor of Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review. Board member of The Society of Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents since 2006. After studying economics at Waseda University and Kyoto University, he taught at Chiba University of Commerce and Chuo University. He began his research career first in Sraffian economics and widened his research area to nonlinear dynamics and econophysics. He served as the President of the Japan Association for Evolutionary Economics from 2015 to 2018. He published in 2015 Evolutionary Foundations of Economic Science from Springer. 

Makoto Nishibe (born in 1962) is a professor at Senshu University. After studying economics at the University of Tokyo, he entered the Graduate School of Economics at York University (Canada). Before teaching at Senshu University, he taught economics at Hokkaido University from 1994 to 2017. In evolutionary economics, he edited Frontiers of Evolutionary Economics (in Japanese, 2004) and published the coauthored elementary textbook Evolutionary Economics – Basics (in Japanese: Nihon Keizai Hyoron-sha, 2010). He was elected the president of the Japan Association for Evolutionary Economics (2018-2021). He discovered the utility of community currency as the means of regional vitalization and developed it into the scheme of synthetic health checks for local societies. He published, The Enigma of Money (Springer. 2016) and Whither Capitalism? Internalizing Market and Free Investment (Springer, 2019). 

Akinori Isogai (born in 1956): He studied economics at Tohoku University and the Graduate School of Economics at Hitotsubashi University. He taught economics at Kyushu University for over thirty years. After retiring from the former, he moved to Shimonoseki City University as its professor in 2021. He is a member of the Japanese research group that has collaborated with French Régulationists in the institutional analysis of Japanese and Asian capitalist economies. He published Frontiers of Institutional Economics in Japanese in 2004 and coedited Diversity and Transformation of Asian Capitalisms (Routledge, 2012). He is the current President of the Japan Association for Evolutionary Economics.