Professional Affiliation

Director General, Research and Survey Department, and Director General for International Affairs, Corporate Strategy Department
Japan Housing Finance Agency

Expert Bio

Masahiro Kobayashi was appointed as the Director General, Research and Survey Department, and Director General for International Affairs, Corporate Strategy Department, at Japan Housing Finance Agency (JHF) as of April 2016. Before serving this position, he served as Chief Economist for Global Markets and wrote 10 books on recent global financial crisis and other related topics, some of which are published in translation in Taiwan and Korea.

He serves as Member of the Advisory Board of Asia Pacific Union for Housing Finance (APUHF). He worked in the Philippines as a representative of Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (now merged with the Japan International Cooperation Agency) from 1996 to 1999 and served as Deputy Country Director for the Philippines at Japan Bank for International Cooperation from 1999 to 2000. He was seconded to Fannie Mae in 2002 as a special trainee to study secondary market operation in the US.

Mr. Kobayashi has delivered speeches at various international conferences on housing, mortgage and securitization including ECBC Plenary Meeting in 2009, EMF Annual Conference in 2009, UNECE and UNDP “1st Housing Forum Europe & Central Asia” in 2011, APUHF International Conference in 2012 and 2013, the World Bank Global Housing Conference in 2012, RICS Asia Valuation Conference 2013 (Keynote Speaker), IUHF World Congress in 2013 and 2015, ADB-ADBI Inception Workshop and Policy Dialogue in 2015, Ginnie Mae-JHF Roundtable in 2015 and ASEAN Fixed Income Summit in 2015 (Keynote Speaker) and 2016, among others.

He holds a B.A. in Law from University of Tokyo. He served as visiting research fellow at Chuo University from 2011 to March 2016 and as part-time lecturer at the Graduate School of Finance, Accounting and Law, Waseda University from 2014 to 2016. He is a member of the Japan Association for Real Estate Sciences and received an Editorial Award in 2012.