RICHARD C. KOO is the Chief Eco-nomist of Nomura Research Institute, where he is responsible for providing independent economic and market analysis to Nomura Securities, the leading securities house in Japan, and its clients. Best known for his theory of balance sheet recessions, Koo has advised several Japanese prime ministers over the last thirty years, and for the past ten years, he has advised numerous Western governments and central banks on how best to address post-bubble economic and banking problems. Before joining Nomura in 1984, Richard, a US citizen, was an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Prior to that, he was a Doctoral Fellow of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. In addition to being one of the first non-Japanese to participate in the development of Japan's five-year economic plan, he taught at Waseda University in Tokyo as a visiting professor and is now a Senior Advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.