Harvard Law School’s Program on International Financial Systems hosted the 16th Annual Symposium on Building the Financial System of the Twenty-first Century: An Agenda for Japan and the United States.

The two-day event, held Oct. 25-27 at the Weill Center in Armonk, N.Y, was co-hosted by the International House of Japan (IHouse). The symposium gathered more than 100 senior executives and government officials from the financial industry, policymaking arenas, law, and academia.

Hal Scott, PIFS director and Nomura Professor of International Financial Systems at HLS, delivered the opening address on Oct. 25. Specific topics for the symposium included:

  • Deteriorating fiscal sustainability and consequences for the government bond markets and the financial system
  • Still too big to fail? Where is SIFI regulation headed?
  • Will Abenomics and Fed’s quantitative easing policies deliver global economic growth?

View the symposium’s agenda, as well as some participant presentations and concept papers on the PIFS website.

Mitsuhiro Furusawa, vice minister of finance, international affairs, Ministry of Finance, Japan and Robert Dohner, deputy assistant secretary for Asia, U.S. Department of Treasury delivered keynote speeches.

Private sector keynote speeches were delivered by Zion Shohet, executive vice president, financial regulation reform, Citi and Takashi Morimura, deputy president & group CEO, global banking, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd.

Founded in 1986, the Program on International Financial Systems (PIFS) fosters the exchange of ideas on capital markets, financial regulation, and international financial systems through its portfolio of Symposia on Building the Financial System of the 21st Century. PIFS also conducts research and organizes special events on these topics.

Each year, the symposia organized by PIFS bring together senior financial leaders, high-ranking government officials, and distinguished academics from the United States and their counterparts from China, Europe, Japan, and Latin America for intensive dialogue on issues affecting international capital markets.