PROFESSIONAL BRIEFING
Masashi Yumoto,
Visiting Professor, Kyorin University

The speech and Q& A will be in English.

"Japan's Budget, A Hidden Treasure Reserve?"

A theme of the current election campaign has been the claim by the Democratic Party of Japan that there is a huge amount of wasted spending in the Japanese government budget, and that there are "hidden treasures" or special accounts that could be tapped by a DPJ-led government to finance increased spending on child allowances etc without raising taxes or increasing government debt.

What are these special accounts, and how can they be tapped to produce new sources of revenue without damaging Japan's national finances? Would the DPJ's spending plans mean "bankrupting" Japan, as some critics of the party's policies have claimed?

Professor Masashi Yumoto is an expert on Japanese finance and has written a book on the subject. He has agreed to reveal to us some of the arcane mysteries of the Japanese government budget so that we may better judge for ourselves the validity of claims that there is wasteful spending by the Japanese government and hidden reserves in the budget.

A graduate of the elite University of Tokyo, Professor Yumoto worked for many years with the Bank of Japan, during which time he obtained his MBA from Pennsylvania's Wharton School before being seconded to the IMF as an economist in the Asian Department, as well as dealing with monetary policy and foreign affairs for the BoJ.

On leaving the bank in 1991, he joined the Tokyo Stock Exchange as a director and ten years ago he assumed the post of professor of economics, money and finance at Kyorin University, where his current status is that of Visiting Professor.

Masashi Yumoto, Visiting Professor, Kyorin University