Introduction

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ijet.12142
• Date: 01 March 2018
• Published date: 01 March 2018

doi: 10.1111/ijet.12142

Introduction

Kaushik Basu,∗Kazuo Nishimura†and Makoto Yano‡

Accepted 26 October 2017

We are delighted to dedicate this collection of papers to Kotaro Suzumura, a leading researcher

of his generation, with an enormous body of papers and books in economics which have been

influential around the world. It was a matter of immense intellectual satisfaction and honor for us to

be able to work with Kotaro’s numerous friends, students and research collaborators to put together

this special issue of the journal.

Kotaro Suzumura was born on 7 January 1944, in Tokoname, Aichi Prefecture. He obtained his

bachelor’s and master’sdegrees from Hitotsubashi University in 1966 and 1968, respectively. Kotaro

started to teach at the Faculty of Economics at Hitotsubashi University in 1971. Then he moved to

the Institute of Economic Research, Kyoto University, in 1973 and later to the Institute of Economic

Research at Hitotsubashi University in 1982. In 2008, Kotaro Suzumura retired from Hitotsubashi

University and moved to the School of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University, as a

Professor.He taught there for several years and retired in 2014. He is currently Professor Emeritus of

Hitotsubashi University and Professor Emeritus and Honorary Fellow of Waseda University. Since

2011, he has been a member of the Japan Academy.

During this teaching career he took several breaks toteach outside Japan, and as such held visiting

positions at the London School of Economics, Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania,

University of Essex, and University of British Columbia.

He has visited Cambridge University as a British Council Visiting Scholar, Harvard University

as a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford University, as a Nissan Visiting

Fellow, the AustralianNational University, All Souls College, Oxford University, as a Visiting Fellow,

and Trinity College, Cambridge University, as a Visiting Fellow Commoner.

Kotaro has had a distinguished career in the service of the economics profession. In 1990, he

was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society. He served as President of the Japanese Economic

Association in 1999–2000 and President of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare in 2000–1.

Kotaro served as editor of the Journal of the Japanese and International Economies during 1992–4,

and as an editor of the Japanese Economic Review in 1995–8.

For his distinguished contributions to economic theory he was awarded the Medal with Purple

Ribbon in 2004, the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and SilverStar in 2017 by the Japanese govern-

ment, and designated a Personof Cultural Merit in 2017 also by the Japanese government. He received

the Japan Academy Award in 2006 for his research on social choice theory and welfare economics.

Kotaro received the Nikkei Publication Prize for Rational Choice, Collective Decisions, and Social

Welfare(Cambridge University Press) in 1984 and for Economic Analysisof Industrial Policy (Academic

Press) in 1988.

∗Department of Economics, Cornell University,Ithaca, NY, USA. Email: kb40@cornell.edu

†Research Institute for Economicsand Business Administration, Kobe University, RIETI, Kobe, Hyogo,Japan.

‡Institute of Economic Research,Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.

International Journal of Economic Theory 14 (2018) 3–8 © IAET 3

International Journal of Economic Theory