lichiro Uesugi is a professor at the Institute of Economic Research of Hitotsubashi University, Japan. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics in 2000 from the University of California, San Diego. Prior to becoming a member of the faculty of Hitotsubashi University in 2011, he joined the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) in 1993 and worked in places including the Economic Policy Unit of the Minister's Secretariat; the Macroeconomic Affairs Division in the Economic and Industrial Policy Bureau; the Research Division of the Small and Medium Enterprises Agency; and the Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry. His research interests focus on banking, corporate finance, and firm dynamics. His research has been published in a number of scholarly journals including International Economic Review, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, Journal of Banking and Finance, and Journal of the Japanese and International Economies.