mini传媒

Published on July 3, 2023
Job titles and other details are as of the time of publication.
(The interview was conducted in Japanese and was thereafter translated into English.)

Studying the consequences of the former Soviet Union's management system to envisage what an ideal development policy looks like

I specialize in Soviet-Russian economic studies, economic geography, and regional economies, conducting research from the perspective of “envisaging what an ideal government development policy should be.”

In the former Soviet Union, people’s movements were controlled by the government. Industry allocation was not based on the decisions of individual companies, but reflected the intention of the central government. This can be viewed as an extreme form of commonly-found government-led regional development. What were the consequences of such government controls? By reviewing this point we can identify the direction government should take in drawing up development policies, and also highlight the fact that population migration lies “outside of government control.” From this perspective, I have conducted an empirical study on the factors of interregional population movements in the former Soviet Union and Russia, and on the chronological transition of industrial locations.

Currently, I am working on “population issues in Russia and the former Soviet Union (low birth rates and regional population migration)” as an extension of my previous research, while taking part in research on the “adjustment and analysis of statistical data on changes in labor force and industrial locations in the Soviet Union’s early industrialization process” that is a collation of “Russian historical statistics.” This is part of the Institute of Economic Research’s former COE project on Asian long-term economic statistics. I have endeavored to further develop my individual research based on materials from the Russian National Economic Archives.

With a love for Dostoevsky I majored in Russian language at university

My first contact with Russia was through Russian literature I read in my high school days. I read two paperbacks a day, and when I came across Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and The Idiot, I fell completely in love with the author.

One of the elements that attracted me was the power of Dostoevsky’s writings to lure the reader into an unreal world. For example, in The Idiot, he described a scene in which dozens of guests enter a room where the main character is, and the scene is absolutely unreal. It would be safe to say that Dostoevsky’s distinctive writing style forcibly draws us into a world with no link to the real world, and I think this is the reason why his works are widely accepted outside of Russia, that is to say, because they do not need to be read based on real contexts. I wanted to read his works in Russian, so I entered the Department of Russian Language of Osaka University of Foreign Studies. I tended to miss classes in my freshman year after finding it pointless to attend classes four days a week in a language school-like environment, but I studied more seriously from my second year.

I also read the writings of Marx and Engels, but did not find them interesting. Nevertheless, I was affected in no small way by the collapse of the Soviet Union in the winter of my sophomore year. There is a famous thesis by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre that questions: “Is literature valid in the face of children dying of hunger?” “Is literature really valid, or should surviving hunger come first?” I thought the answer to this question might be found not in literature but in economics, and not in Japan but in Russia.

Studying in Moscow I witnessed the chaos in the aftermath of the former Soviet Union’s collapse

I studied at the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute for 10 months starting in August 1992. This was my second contact with Russia. My candid impression of Russia while studying there was nothing short of “interesting.”

At that time, Russia was suffering from hyperinflation of 2,600% one year after price liberalization took place in January 1992. Citizens in Moscow were selling such belongings as lace-knitted ornaments and books on the roadside or at subway station entrances. Entering a “milk” store I saw shoes being sold in one corner; the milk shop owner had allowed a shoe seller to conduct business there in return for rent.

On the other hand, I encountered a person selling potatoes smaller than a taro to an elderly pensioner for around 10 yen per kilogram, and another trying to give money to a soldier who had lost both legs during the Soviet-Afghan conflict and making the stairs accessible for the soldier bound to a cart.... I witnessed chaotic situations like these every day, not sure whether those people were kind or not.

Equipped with the tools of statistics and the Russian language

It took a few more steps, however, before I began to pursue my career researching the Russian economy. After going on to graduate school, I was first influenced by my applied microeconomics professor. His research theme was to show mathematically how cities were developed. I was so stunned reading his paper that I could not sleep until the morning, wondering how he was able to describe the development process of large, midsized, and satellite cities with such a simple model.

I was not capable of building such a model, but fortunately I was able to understand it. I was equipped with statistics and econometrics skills to test the model’s applicability as well as Russian language skills learned since my undergraduate days studying in Russia. I chose the Russian economy as my specialization to make good use of these two tools.

Study from the perspective of demographics that even the former Soviet Union cannot misrepresent

As an extension of these previous works, I have continued research on “demographics” to this day. Russia, or more precisely the former Soviet Union, has properly recorded and preserved data such as the number of people purged by Stalin or killed in the Battle of Stalingrad. In a sense, the country has the most reliable statistical data.

It is also true, however, that the country has a history of using unique definitions to misrepresent this data. For example, the infant mortality rate is quite high even by the former Soviet Union’s definition, but if we apply the definition common to Europe, the United States, and Japan (World Health Organization), the rate jumps even higher. In addition, production statistics are not expressed in monetary values, but rather by indices such as “If the year 1950 is set as 1....”

The type of statistics most difficult to misrepresent is “demographics.” In the former Soviet Union, population migration was supposed to be controlled based on the theory that supported the central government in optimizing capital and labor, in other words, the reallocation of production resources. As citizens were required to obtain permits to live in over 300 cities, the influx of populations into big cities must have been strictly controlled. In reality, however, hundreds of thousands of more people lived in Moscow without permits than was ever recorded. The statistical data reveals it. It may be a surprise, but people were able to make their own decisions even under the socialist regime. My research started from this perspective.

Appreciating the research environment in the Institute of Economic Research, where diverse types of researchers are working

This phenomenon is called “voting with your feet,” which means that people ultimately choose to live wherever they like. The phenomenon is widely observed, and some well-known examples are Tokyo and Hiroshima after the Second World War. Both cities lost a great deal of their population due to the war, but have since regained their numbers. Tokyo sits on the largest plain situated in the center of Japan; Hiroshima has a good natural harbor. I believe people moved to Tokyo and Hiroshima attracted by their charms and advantages. One of my research themes is to highlight how government development policies should or should not be in light of this sort of decision making.

Making comparisons not only with the former Soviet Union and Russia, but also with various other regions provides me with many suggestions. The Institute of Economic Research of Hitotsubashi University, where I work, is home to specialists in a variety of fields, including Japanese labor economy, health economics, urban economics, econometric theory, and finance. When I participate in study groups and listen to the reports of my colleagues or give my own reports, I am often inspired by perspectives I could never have imagined. They all raise questions and express different opinions without hesitation, and I enjoy when a question asked is a tough one. I feel truly blessed to have conducted research in such a favorable environment over the past 20 years.