Kay Shimizu is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh and a Visiting Scholar at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Japan.
Her research addresses institutional design and their effects on economic governance with a special interest in central local relations, property rights, and the digital transformation. Her publications include Political Change in Japan: Electoral Behavior, Party Realignment, and the Koizumi Reforms (coedited with Steven R. Reed and Kenneth McElwain) as well as articles in Socio-Economic Review, Journal of East Asian Studies, Current History, and Social Science Japan Journal. She is the author, with Patricia L. Maclachlan, of a forthcoming book on agricultural cooperative reform from Cornell University Press. Shimizu received her Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University. She contributes regularly to the public discourse on international relations and the political economy of Asia and has been a fellow at the Mike and Maureen Mansfield Foundation, the National Committee on U.S. China Relations, and the U.S.-Japan Foundation.