Michael M. Hutchison is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is coauthor of The Political Economy of Japanese Monetary Policy (MIT Press, 1997) and Financial Policy and Central Banking in Japan (MIT Press, 2000).

Takatoshi Ito is Professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and Senior Professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. He has served as Deputy Vice Minister for International Affairs in Japan's Ministry of Finance and as Senior Advisor in the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund.