Richard Koo

Independent activity 1954–

Chief economist at Nomura Research Institute who explained Japan's long slump as a "balance sheet recession"

The son of a Taiwanese independence activist, Koo was born in Kobe, Japan, grew up in Tokyo, and studied political science at the University of California, Berkeley and economics at Johns Hopkins University. He was an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1981 to 1984, then joined Nomura in 1984 and became chief economist of Nomura Research Institute. He gave the name "balance sheet recession" to a slump in which, after asset prices collapse, the private sector concentrates on paying down debt rather than spending or investing. From the late 1990s he argued for active fiscal spending against the advocates of supply-side reform.

Also known as: Richard C. Koo