J. Mark Ramseyer

Mitsubishi Professor of Japanese Legal Studies

Biographical Statement

Mark Ramseyer spent most of his childhood in provincial towns and cities in southern Japan, attending Japanese schools for K-6. He returned to the U.S. for college. Before attending law school, he studied Japanese history in graduate school. Ramseyer graduated from HLS in 1982. He clerked for the Hon. Stephen Breyer (then on the First Circuit), worked for two years at Sidley & Austin (in corporate tax), and studied as a Fulbright student at the University of Tokyo. After teaching at UCLA and the University of Chicago, he came to Harvard in 1998. He has also taught or co-taught courses at several Japanese universities (in Japanese). In his research, Ramseyer primarily studies Japanese law, and primarily from a law & economics perspective. In addition to a variety of Japanese law courses, he teaches the basic Corporations course. With Professors Klein and Bainbridge, he co-edits a Foundation Press casebook in the field.

Appointments

• Visiting Professor of Law, 1991
• Mitsubishi Professor of Japanese Legal Studies, 1998

Education

• Goshen College B.A. 1976, History
• University of Michigan A.M. 1978, Japanese Studies
• Harvard Law School J.D. 1982

Research Interests

• Japanese Law
• Law and Economics

Subject Areas for Supervising Written Work

• Japanese Law

Representative Publications

• Ramseyer, J. Mark & Yoshira Miwa. The Fable of the Keiretsu: Urban Legends of the Japanese Economy (University of Chicago Press 2006).
  Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)
  (Awarded the Masahiro Ohira Memorial Prize in 2007)
  
• Ramseyer, J. Mark & Minoru Nakazato. Japanese Law: An Economic Approach (University of Chicago Press 1998).
  Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)
  (Paperback edition, with corrections, 2000. Awarded: Professional/Scholarly Publishing Award, for best book in law, Association of American Publishers, 1999)
  
• Ramseyer, J. Mark. Odd Markets in Japanese History: Law and Economic Growth (Cambridge University Press 1996).
  Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)
  
• Ramseyer, J. Mark & Frances McCall Rosenbluth. The Politics of Oligarchy: Institutional Choice in Imperial Japan (Cambridge University Press 1995).
  Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)
  (Awarded Luebbert Award, for best book in Comparative Politics, American Political Science Association)
  
• Ramseyer, J. Mark & Frances McCall Rosenbluth. Japan's Political Marketplace (Harvard University Press 1993).
  Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)
  (Paperback edition, with a new Preface: 1997)
  

Bibliography

View bibliography