The academic year of 2023 will be the final year for the Center for Positive/Empirical Analysis of Political Economy, a research unit established in 2014 under the 10-year Top Global University (Waseda Goes Global) project. Through the former research units such as the Center of Excellence Program for the 21st Century and the Global Center of Excellence Program, as well as through the current project, our faculty, staff and graduate students have made great efforts to bring us about an exceptional, world-class research and education hub for political economy, where political science and economics are soundly merged.
The biggest reason I think that political science and economics would merge is that more and more research methods in various fields are being shared among scholars these days. Currently, theoretical models centered on game theory, statistical causal inference, and experiments (survey, field, laboratory) are naturally used by both political scientists and economists according to their own interests. Since these methods are constantly evolving, it’s crucial that we keep learning from leading experts from in and out of Japan in order to keep up with the evolution for each method.
For this reason, we value international exchange. In addition to inviting many researchers from overseas to give lectures and seminars to the students at Waseda, we also send out our students to overseas institutions to receive training as well as to present their research results abroad. The researchers/students based in the Center for Positive/Empirical Analysis of Political Economy are connected to the world while staying at Waseda.
The current goal of our research unit is to successfully land the TGU project by 2023, and to prepare for a new takeoff of the unit thereafter. We appreciate your support and encouragement from everyone involved.

This center provides and facilitates the world’s top-level education and research in political sciences and economics under the Waseda Goes Global Plan funded by the Japanese MEXT Top Global University Project. The center develops internationally active scholars in political sciences and economics who challenge global-scale social issues and propose evidence-based solutions by designing government policies and political/economic institutions. These scholars share common analytical tools such as game theory, experimental methods, and big data analysis.   To provide the world's top-level education and research opportunities, we, for example, provide a combined degree program (Bachelor's + Master's degree) with the University of Essex, offer courses taught by researchers from the world’s top universities such as Stanford University, and organize Essex Summer School @ Waseda. In addition, many center members serve as board members for international academic associations and editorial board members for international academic journals. These endeavors have enhanced our international presence. The number of international research collaborations has increased substantially from 15 in 2014 to 52 in 2019. Furthermore, as an industry-academia collaboration, we organized a data science competition for students collaborating with private companies.