Waseda University

This course is an introduction to methods on how to analyze individual decision making based on behavioral economics. Behavioral economics uses cognitive and emotional factors in understanding the economic decisions of individuals and societies. From the 1990s, researchers in economics started expanding the scope of their formal, mathematical models to encompass some types of behavior that were found in behavioral economics though they were at odds with the standard economic theory. The course mainly discusses behavioral decision-making theory. Standard economics usually assume the following two assumptions to analyze individual decision making. First, an individual forms beliefs describing the probabilities of all choices, and after receiving new information, an individual updates his/her beliefs in correct way according to probability theory. Second, an individual acts as if s/he is maximizing an expected utility. However, behavioral economics indicate that people do not behave as like standard economics assumed. Assessment: exam, quizzes.

In the Meiji period, many predicted that the traditional genre of the haiku would rapidly disappear as Japan transformed into a modern society. Contrary to this prediction, the haiku has proved to be widely popular, not only in modern Japan, but also outside the country, especially in North America. This phenomenon raises many questions. Are modern haiku the same as traditional haiku? Are haiku written in English the same as those written in Japanese? How far can a form of poetry change and yet still be regarded as the same form? This course answers these questions by surveying the historical development of the haiku from its roots in the medieval poetic form of the renga to contemporary haiku being written in Japan and abroad. 

This course teaches the major conventions of the haiku form; the differences between classical hokku and modern haiku; the representative works of the major poets through the centuries and the ways in which haiku were understood and misunderstood when they were introduced to Western countries.