----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- I do not think that in the U.S. universities the Japanese language had ever been included in a group of core required languages in the (post)graduate course of economics. In the 1950s, thanks to the Fulbright scholarship program and GALIOA fund (the predecessor of the Fulbright in academic field), dozens of Japanese students were sent to the U.S. universities. The Japanese economics students studying at Harvard, MIT, Chicago, etc. had to study French and/or German, math and statistics based on their English as a second language. They had a hard time and some of them became ill. But they brought the American economic language and empirical studies back to Japanese universities. (Probably the students were allowed to choose other languages than French or German, the Japanese thought that the other languages were less useful in the study of contemporary economics than German or French.) On the other hand, in the 1950s-60s, the (young) Japanese visiting researchers who joined the so-called Arrow's project (on mathematical economics) at Stanford did not have to agonize with their third or fourth languages in the U. S. (although many of them studied two foreign languages in Japanese universities). The Japanese scholars who joined Arrow's project were Hukukane Nikaido, Takashi Negishi, Hirofumi Uzawa, etc. I have heard that during the period from the 1950s to 1970s (or 1960s) many U.S. universities dropped the language requirements in the (post)graduate course of economics (and sociology, maybe) and since then the number and ratio of non-European students has been dramatically increased. I would argue that the U.S. universities have been internationalized and secured the international competitiveness in (post)graduate education of economics because they decided to substitute (human) languages with math and statistics. The Japanese, living in Japan, are now under pressure of a more intensive use of English in economic and political life from ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) members--Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and VietNam. They have chosen English as one of the official languages. Since around 1998, they have been more integrated and persuading their neighboring countries for both economic internationalization and political communications than before in order to get out of the economic troubles caused by the Asian financial-economic crash of 1997. (The nearest English-speaking country to ASEAN is Australia.) Let me return to math and English in economics. Math is required at some degree to become an economist because since the mid 20th century the mainstream economics (neoclassical economics) has changed its shape by the use of various type of mathematics and removed any nationality from itself. English is required for economists to communicate with each other at the international level because U.S. universities made the (first) rational choice to substitute 'foreign' languages with math and statistics, and attracted many international scholars and students from outside. (The migration of intelligentsia from Central Europe to American Continents in the 1930s had a major impact on the U.S. academia in the following period.) I still believe that it is an adviser's role for his/her students to expand their choice set for the rest of their life. Aiko Ikeo ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]