IJS Lecture: Kay Shimizu, "Betting on the Farm: Institutional Change in Japan's Agriculture"

Kay Shimizu photo
January 31, 2025
12:45PM - 2:05PM
Mendenhall Lab 191

Date Range
2025-01-31 12:45:00 2025-01-31 14:05:00 IJS Lecture: Kay Shimizu, "Betting on the Farm: Institutional Change in Japan's Agriculture" The Institute for Japanese Studies presents:"Betting on the Farm: Institutional Change in Japan's Agriculture"Kay ShimizuUniversity of PittsburghAbstract: Betting on the Farm takes a fresh look at the conditions for change among agricultural coops and in the Japanese agricultural sector more broadly.  We explore the effects on formal and informal rules, organizations, and strategies of two sets of slow-moving structural changes that challenge many countries today: market liberalization and demographic decline and aging.  With its gradually liberalizing markets and oldest population in the world, Japan is an optimal laboratory for examining these interactions.  And the Japanese farm sector, where the population is shrinking and aging at rates much faster than the national average, offers us a unique laboratory for exploring these processes up close. Download the PDF flyer here.Kay Shimizu is a Research Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of International and Public Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research addresses institutional design and their effects on economic governance with a focus on East Asia.  She is the author of Betting on the Farm: Institutional Change in Japanese Agriculture (with Patricia Maclachlan), and The Digital Transformation and Japan’s Political Economy (with Ulrike Schaede).  Her current research is about the confluence of demographic change and the digital transformation in the East Asian context.  Mendenhall Lab 191 America/New_York public

The Institute for Japanese Studies presents:

"Betting on the Farm: Institutional Change in Japan's Agriculture"

Kay Shimizu
University of Pittsburgh

Abstract: Betting on the Farm takes a fresh look at the conditions for change among agricultural coops and in the Japanese agricultural sector more broadly.  We explore the effects on formal and informal rules, organizations, and strategies of two sets of slow-moving structural changes that challenge many countries today: market liberalization and demographic decline and aging.  With its gradually liberalizing markets and oldest population in the world, Japan is an optimal laboratory for examining these interactions.  And the Japanese farm sector, where the population is shrinking and aging at rates much faster than the national average, offers us a unique laboratory for exploring these processes up close. 

Download the PDF flyer here.

Kay Shimizu is a Research Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of International and Public Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research addresses institutional design and their effects on economic governance with a focus on East Asia.  She is the author of Betting on the Farm: Institutional Change in Japanese Agriculture (with Patricia Maclachlan), and The Digital Transformation and Japan’s Political Economy (with Ulrike Schaede).  Her current research is about the confluence of demographic change and the digital transformation in the East Asian context. 

If you require an accommodation, such as live captioning, to participate in this event, please contact EASC at easc@osu.edu. Requests made at least two weeks in advance of the event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date. 

This event is supported by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant to The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center.