J. Mark Ramseyer, Mitsubishi Professor of Japanese Legal Studies at the Harvard Law School, has been conferred with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, by the Japanese government. One of the oldest and highest national decorations, the award recognizes Ramsayer’s extensive contributions to the development of Japanese studies in the U.S. and the promotion of understanding of Japanese society and culture.
A leading scholar in his field, Ramseyer focuses his research on Japanese law. He has authored and co-authored many publications, including Second-Best Justice: The Virtues of Japanese Private Law (2015), Business Organizations (2012), Corporate Law Stories (editor, 2009), and The Fable of the Keiretsu: Urban Legends and the Japanese Economy (2006), which was awarded the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize. He has also published numerous works in Japanese, including Kēsu bukku M&A [Casebook Mergers & Acquisitions] (with Masakazu Iwakura, 2015), Sozeihō to shijō [Tax Law and the Market] (with Hiroshi Kaneko and Minoru Nakazato, 2014), and Hō to keizaigaku [Law and Economics] (1990), which received the Suntory Cultural Foundation Prize for Scholarship in Political Economy.
At HLS, Ramseyer teaches a variety of courses on Japanese law, as well as an introductory course on Corporations. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Legal Analysis and serves on the advisory boards of the University of Tokyo School of Law and Keio University School of Law.
Before joining the Harvard faculty, Ramseyer taught at the University of Chicago (1992-98) and University of California Los Angeles (1986-1992). He has also taught courses at the University of Haifa, and Tel Aviv University in Israel; Hitotsubashi University, Tohoku University, the University of Tokyo, and Waseda University in Japan; and University of Virginia. After receiving a B.A. in History from Goshen College in 1976, he earned his A.M. in Japanese studies from the University of Michigan in 1978 and J.D. from Harvard University in 1982.