Richard Koo

Mr. Richard Koo is Chief Economist at Nomura Securities Co., Ltd.
Before joining Nomura in 1984, Mr. Koo, was an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (1981-84).
Prior to that, he was a Doctoral Fellow of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1979-81).
In addition to conducting financial market research, he has been appointed by several Japanese prime ministers to a number of key committee positions to study the future designs for the Japanese economy.
He has also spearheaded the national debate on how best to save Japan's ailing banking system through his frequent TV and parliamentary appearances.
In addition to being one of the first non-Japanese to participate in the making of Japan's 5-year economic plan, he is also the only non-Japanese member of the Defense Strategy Study Conference of the Japan Defense Agency.
Author of four books on Japanese economy each of which sold nearly 100,000 copies, he recently released a book titled 'Balance Sheet Recession - Japan's Struggle with Uncharted Economics and its Global Implications' .
He also writes regularly for many publications which includes BusinessWeek Online.
In financial circles, Mr. Koo was ranked 1st among over 100 economists covering Japan in the Nikkei Financial Ranking for 1995, 1996 and 1997, and by the Institutional Investor magazine for 1998.
He was also ranked 1st by Nikkei Newsletter on Bond and Money for 1998, 1999 and 2000.
He was awarded the Abramson Award by the National Association for Business Economics, Washington D.C.
for the year 2001.
Mr. Koo, a native of Kobe, Japan, is married with two children.
Mr. Koo holds BAs in Political Science and Economics from the University of California at Berkeley (1976), and MA in Economics from the Johns Hopkins University (1979).
Since 1998, Mr. Koo has been a visiting professor at Waseda University in Tokyo.