Masahiro Kawai Named as Next Dean of Tokyo-Based ADB Institute

MANILA, PHILIPPINES (14 November 2006) – ADB has named Masahiro Kawai as the next Dean of the Tokyo-based Asian Development Bank Institute.

Mr. Kawai, who moves from his present position as head of ADB's Office of Regional Economic Integration (OREI) and concurrently Special Advisor to the ADB President in charge of regional economic cooperation and integration, will take over from Peter McCawley.

The ADB Institute is a development "think-tank" and high-level training center established by ADB in 1997.

Prior to his assumption as the Head of OREI in October 2005, Mr. Kawai was a Professor at the University of Tokyo's Institute of Social Science. Mr. Kawai also worked as Chief Economist for the World Bank's East Asia and the Pacific Region from 1998 to 2001, and as Deputy Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs of Japan's Ministry of Finance from 2001 to 2003.

Mr. Kawai began his career as a Research Fellow at Brookings Institution and then as an Assistant and Associate Professor in the economics department of Johns Hopkins University. Afterwards, he served as an Associate and Full Professor at the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo.

He served as a consultant at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and at the International Monetary Fund, both in Washington, DC. He was also Special Research Advisor at the Institute of Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Japan's Ministry of Finance, and a visiting researcher at the Bank of Japan's Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies and at the Economic Planning Agency's Economic Research Institute.

Mr. Kawai has published a number of books and numerous articles on economic globalization, on regional financial integration and cooperation in East Asia, including lessons from the Asian crisis, and on the international currency system.

He graduated with his B.A. and M.A. degrees in Economics from the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Economics. He earned his M.S. degree in Statistics and Ph.D. degree in Economics from Stanford University.