Amemiya, Takeshi
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- In this oral history from 2017, the noted econometrician Takeshi Amemiya, Edward Ames Edmonds Professor of Economics, Emeritus, describes his early life in wartime Japan, his education in economics, and his years on the faculty of the Department of Economics at Stanford University. His wife, Yoshiko Miyaki Amemiya, briefly describes meeting Amemiya in Japan and her experience of life at Stanford. Amemiya begins by describing how Advanced Econometrics, a comprehensive text that is still in print three decades after its initial publication in 1985, evolved from material he used to teach the subject when he first came to Stanford in 1964. About that time, Amemiya explains, microdata on individual households and companies began to become available. Amemiya developed the statistical methods to analyze such data, and he was the first to write a textbook on the subject. Elaborating on his early years at Stanford, Amemiya explains that the faculty of the Department of Economics were assigned to different campus buildings, depending on their interests. He says this tended to deter collaboration until the department was consolidated at Encina Hall in the 1970s. Amemiya jumps ahead to discuss his later interests: sharing his delight in discovering the similarities of Greek and Japanese customs, including the gods they worshipped and their shrines to the dead. In addition, after traveling in China, he began to write poetry in Chinese. Turning to his childhood, Amemiya says he was only seven at the outbreak of World War II, which found his family in Lima, Peru, where his father worked as an executive for a Japanese shipping line. He describes being caught up in an exchange of Japanese and U.S. citizens living abroad at the outbreak of war. Although he was evacuated from Tokyo during the war, he experienced air raids in the area near Mount Fuji to which he had been sent. Amemiya describes his time at the International Christian University in Japan, Guilford College in North Carolina, and the American University in Washington, DC and admits to sometimes being distracted from his studies by American novels and golf. At Johns Hopkins University, Amemiya says a connection with econometrist Carl F. Christ set him on a career course that led him to join the faculty of the Stanford Department of Economics. Stanford then was more comfortable and less pressured than today, Amemiya says, offering his criticism of today’s practice of allowing students to evaluate professors, arguing that this encourages overly rehearsed teaching. Instead, he recalls putting new problems on the board and solving them with the students. Yoshiko Amemiya recounts how she met and married the young professor during a brief period when he left Stanford to teach in Japan. She also shares some of the challenges she experienced adapting to American culture, especially in feeling comfortable with the informality of the English language. Amemiya concludes by briefly describing the anti-Vietnam War protests at Stanford and recalling some memorable faculty rivalries on the tennis court.
Description
| Type of resource | mixed material |
|---|---|
| Date created | February 22, 2017 - March 1, 2017 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Amemiya, Takeshi | |
|---|---|---|
| Contributing author | Thomas, Odette | |
| Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
Subjects
| Subject | Takeshi Amemiya |
|---|---|
| Subject | Stanford Historical Society |
| Subject | oral histories |
| Subject | interviews |
| Subject | higher education |
| Subject | professors |
| Subject | Stanford University > Department of Economics |
| Subject | econometrics |
| Subject | Yoshiko Miyaki Amemiya |
Bibliographic information
| Related item |
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| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/qf022cc3668 |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- The materials are open for research use and may be used freely for non-commercial purposes with an attribution. For commercial permission requests, please contact the Stanford University Archives (universityarchives@stanford.edu).
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
Ameimiya, Takeshi (2017).
Oral History. Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program Interviews (SC0932).
Department of Special Collections & University Archives, Stanford University Libraries,
Stanford, Calif. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/qf022cc3668.
Collection
Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2022
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