is a Japanese neo- Walrasian economist.

Career

Negishi graduated Faculty of Economics,

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

in 1956 and received a PhD in Economics from University of Tokyo in 1963.

Contributions

Negishi's research has provided a wide range of extensions to orthodox general equilibrium modelling. These additions have typically involved

imperfect competition In economics, imperfect competition refers to a situation where the characteristics of an economic market do not fulfil all the necessary conditions of a perfectly competitive market. Imperfect competition will cause market inefficiency when it hap ...

stability Stability may refer to: Mathematics *Stability theory, the study of the stability of solutions to differential equations and dynamical systems **Asymptotic stability **Linear stability **Lyapunov stability **Orbital stability **Structural stabilit ...

and

unemployment Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for Work (human activity), w ...

Controversy

Negishi is most famous for

Negishi welfare weights is a Japanese surname and place name. It may refer to: * Ei-ichi Negishi, a Japanese chemist who was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry ** Negishi coupling, a chemical reaction discovered by Ei-ichi Negishi in 1977 * Kichitaro Negishi, a Jap ...

or Negishi social welfare function, a system of weighting welfare assessment used in the

Kyoto Protocol The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part ...

and other macro-economic analyses. These are controversial insofar as they recognize and embed into economic analysis a varying and unequal price of life across different countries. Elizabeth A. Stanton specifically criticized this approach in ''Negishi Welfare Weights: The Mathematics of Global Inequality'', 2011, arguing in an interview that: :"…Negishi weighting is a key ethical assumption at work in climate-economics models, but one that is virtually unknown to most model users. Negishi weights freeze the current distribution of income between world regions; without this constraint, IAMs that maximize global welfare would recommend an equalization of income across regions as part of their policy advice. With Negishi weights in place, these models instead recommend a course of action that would be optimal only in a world in which global income redistribution cannot and will not take place" at any rate whatsoever. This is argued by Stanton and others to be both inequitable and inaccurate, as over time that "current distribution" would change, making the policy advice even more wrong than it was when it was decided. Joshua K. Abbott and Eli P. Fenchel acknowledged that

"Negishi weights are often criticized on ethical grounds. utWe show the Negishi SWF is ethically consistent with the Golden Rule, whereby the social planner weights others’ utilities at a point in time as he would weight his own future
discounted utility In economics, discounted utility is the utility (desirability) of some future event, such as consuming a certain amount of a good, as perceived at the present time as opposed to at the time of its occurrence. It is calculated as the present disco ...
."

However, the assumptions are still those of the planner and not those whose welfare is planned for. An empirical observation that remains unexplained is why the income distribution observed in 1948 by

George F. Kennan George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was an American diplomat and historian. He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War. He lectured widely and wrote scholarly hist ...

, when the US had 50% of world wealth (and presumably income) with 6% of its population, remained so similar to the price of life ratio between developed and developing world as of Kyoto in 1990, at about 15 to 1. However, this could not be blamed easily on Negishi.

Festschrift

* Ikeo, A., & Kurz, H.-D. (2009). ''A history of economic theory: Essays in honour of Takashi Negishi''. London: Routledge.

Selected publications

* Negishi, T. (1960). Welfare economics and existence of an equilibrium for a competitive economy. ''Metroeconomica'', June, 12, 92–97. * Negishi, Takashi (1962) The Stability of a Competitive Economy: A Survey Article, ''Econometrica'' Vol. 30, No. 4, Oct., pp. 635–669 * Negishi, Takashi, (1979) ''Microeconomic Foundations of Keynesian Macroeconomics'', Amsterdam: North-Holland

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Negishi, Takashi 1933 births Living people Japanese economists University of Tokyo alumni Academic staff of the University of Tokyo Academic staff of Aoyama Gakuin University Academic staff of Toyo Eiwa University Presidents of the Japanese Economic Association Presidents of the Econometric Society Fellows of the Econometric Society Persons of Cultural Merit Recipients of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 2nd class Recipients of the Order of Culture