Gene Park

Gene Park teaches courses on East Asian politics and political economy. He is currently completing a research project on the politics of government finance in Japan. His research interests include the comparative political economy of East Asian states and advanced industrial democracies. His work has appeared in the journals Governance and Asian Survey, and he co-authored an article for the edited volume, The State after Statism (Harvard University Press). Gene received his Ph.D. in Political Science from University of California, Berkeley in 2007. He is also he recipient of a Fulbright scholarship. He has been a visiting scholar at the Japanese Ministry of Finance and a Research Fellow at Stanford University¹s Asia-Pacific Research Center.

The Secret History of the Politics of Public Spending in Japan

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Japan’s meteoric economic rise from the end of World War II through the 1980s and then its rapid descent into economic stagnation is one of the greatest reversals of economic fortunes among the industrialized democracies. Japan’s public finances followed a similar arc, with Japan, a former model of fiscal discipline and restrained spending, becoming virtually … Read more