Keio University

This course introduces production management and presents tools and techniques mostly used by Japanese companies to manage and control their production systems. It provides the necessary concepts, tools, and methods to understand production management systems and the logic behind the various planning, scheduling, control, and decision techniques. The course covers essential Japanese production management concepts such as Toyota’s production systems, just-in-time, Kanban, and Kaizen. It also deals with traditional and modern Japanese production systems and those control systems being practiced in Toyota.

This course is designed for students learning Japanese for the first time. The course aims to enhance basic listening and speaking skills as well as communicate with basic vocabulary and sentence structure. The course design is based on sentence structures and grammatical patterns learned in the class “Essential Japanese 1M-1 & 1M-2." It is recommended to take “Essential Japanese 1M-1 & 1M-2” together with this course.

This class introduces the history of jazz and increases one's understanding of and appreciation for jazz music. Jazz music has stylistically changed over the last 100 years; this course covers the history of jazz from the beginning of jazz to the present styles.

Those who are interested in jazz music and those learning how to play jazz will benefit from taking this course. 

This course introduces a number of education policies and projects which have enacted real societal and global change in Asia and the rest of the world. Opportunities to analyze these policies and evaluate these projects will be provided. Subsequently, the class will plan and implement their own education projects to effect social change in the communities and countries in Asia. 

This course explores the process and mechanism of the economic development of modern East Asia from the 19th century to the present. East Asia, which includes Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Korean Peninsula, is a rarity in that it has succeeded in economic catch-up with Western European and North American developed countries in the 20th and 21st centuries. This course highlights the relationships and interactions between the countries in the region. 

Although the content of this course may be labeled as "modern" art theory, it mainly deals with the first half of the 20th century.  This course examines how art has come to be established in modern times, in relation to the broader cultural and ideological context. The goal of the course is for participants to be able to view not only so-called works of art, but also objects that participants engage with that is inseparable from art. 

This course teaches theory and policies related to international transactions of goods and services. Lectures will be given on both the positive theory of the international division of labor that analyzes the pattern of international trade and the normative theory of trade-related policies that examines economic effects and welfare implication of government policies.

This course is designed to introduce students to classical and new topics in international trade from theoretical and empirical perspectives. It covers standard and academic materials commonly studied by economists in academia as well as international organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. After successfully completing this course, students will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of academic studies on international trade.

This course introduces students to consumer psychology, an area of psychology that examines how our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and perceptions affect how and what we purchase. Why do consumers select certain products over others? What makes one partake in impulsive purchasing? Is there any cultural difference in consumer behavior? 

As society becomes global, marketers need to consider global as well as glocal (globally local) strategies. To succeed in globalizing markets, how consumers perceive standardized or customized products and services must be studied. In this course, students are expected to learn about consumers' needs and/or motivations as well as effective approaches to cater to these needs/motivations. 

Two group presentations will be required in this course. 

Note: The courses provided in Spring and Fall are identical and hence students are allowed to register only for the Spring or Fall course, not both. 

This course must be taken together with Environmental Economics B. 

Environmental economics is a branch of modern economics that studies economic behaviors of agents that have environmental consequences and thus attempts to help guide future environmental and resource policies. This course is designed to acquaint students with an intermediate level knowledge of the field. 

The course aims to:

1. Establish an understanding of economic principles that guide us in the study of environmental and resource problems --- i.e., Why do environmental and resource issues occur? Do economic incentives matter?
2. Discuss how different policy instruments, such as emissions taxes, green subsidies, and cap-and-trade programs, work differently under different situations.
3. Provide key topics, tools, and models of interest to environmental practitioners.

This course covers a wide range of topics in modern labor economics with theories and evidence. The course aims to acquaint students with major issues in labor economics and equip them with the economic tools necessary to understand the workings of the labor market. The course emphasizes the interaction between economic theory and empirical work. 

The course begins by introducing the classic economics of human capital and education, with the applications to schooling, job market signaling, job training, and occupational choice. Then it covers the basic theories and empirics on labor supply, labor demand, and labor market equilibrium, linking to topics such as home production, technological change, and minimum wage. After that, two alternative frameworks for understanding wage structure, compensating differential and sorting, will be considered. Last, the course studies several important issues regarding the labor market: job search and unemployment, institutions and policies, and discriminations. Upon successful completion of the course, the students would be able to link theoretical concepts to real-world labor market phenomena and utilize appropriate economics tools to analyze them. The course also prepares students for further study in the field of labor economics.