Today we announce with great sadness the passing of our friend and colleague Takatoshi Ito, who died in Tokyo on September 20, at the age of 74.
Professor Ito joined the Weatherhead community in 2014, and scores of people both inside and outside Columbia came to know him not only as a distinguished scholar of international economics but also as a generous teacher, mentor, and collaborator. At Columbia, he was a Professor of International and Public Affairs at SIPA and directed the Program on Public Pension and Sovereign Funds at the Center on Japanese Economy and Business (CJEB). He will be especially remembered for his lectures on the Japanese economy—speaking just last October, for instance, on the demographic challenges that currently confront Japan.
Weatherhead faculty member Merit E. Janow, SIPA Dean Emerita and Professor of Practice, said in a statement: “Professor Ito embodied everything we hope for in a colleague. His scholarly brilliance was matched only by his genuine care for his students and his enthusiasm for his work…. Those of us fortunate enough to work alongside him witnessed daily his rare combination of intellectual rigor and an engaging and generous personality. He also played such a vital role between expert communities in the US and in Japan. The academic world has lost a giant, but we have lost a treasured colleague.”
Professor Ito earned his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1979 and taught extensively in both Japan and the US, at such institutions as the University of Tokyo and the University of Minnesota, prior to joining Columbia. He also held senior positions in government, including as Deputy Vice Minister for International Affairs at Japan’s Ministry of Finance and as a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy.
Professor Ito was the author of a 1992 textbook on the Japanese economy that was widely considered the standard work on its subject. With a co-author, Takeo Hoshi, he published a substantially revised and expanded second edition of the book in 2020 that took into account the “lost decades” that had befallen the Japanese economy since the first edition’s publication. Ito was also the author of numerous other books, peer-reviewed research papers, journal articles, and opinion pieces.
Among many other honors in his long and distinguished career, Professor Ito received Japan’s National Medal with Purple Ribbon for academic achievement in 2011 and the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon in 2024.
A heartfelt tribute from CJEB Director David E. Weinstein can be read here.
Per the wishes of Professor Ito's family:
Those who wish to remember Professor Ito may direct any expressions of sympathy to the following institutions, which Professor Ito held dear to Professor Ito’s heart.
