ABSTRACT
In Japanese central government after 1945, such ministries as the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), which are related to economic policies, have increased their power and prestige. However, it is not the graduates in economics but graduates in law, particularly those of the Law Faculty of the University of Tokyo (Todai), that occupy the main stream of government officials even in those ministries. A small group of bureaucrats are called sometimes ‘bureaucrat economists’. Their analysis based on econometrics is respected in and out of the administrative bureaucracy. But they are in essence experts that have no access to influential positions in real policy making.1 Indeed post-1945 Japanese bureaucrats talk much on economic matters, in clear contrast to the pre-war bureaucrats, but most of them are lawyers in their educational background. Even ‘bureaucrat economists’ are in many cases lawyers that studied economics after entering administration.
