The last part of my swing through Japan put me in Kyoto for the Asian Real Estate Society (AsRES) annual conference. Kyoto was Japan’s former capital and the site of the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997. [The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement that commits the signing Parties to internationally binding emission reduction targets. Subsequent meetings on these issues have occurred in Marrakesh, Morocco in 2001 and Doha, Qatar in 2012.]

Paper presentations at the AsRES conference were in English (thank goodness!). The papers were generally of good quality. Some papers were quite thought-provoking, especially the presentation I attended on the use of textual analysis to create a Market Sentiment Index that can be used to forecast GDP and potentially other indicators of economic growth.

While we worked hard in our sessions, we played hard, too. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, we visited several Buddhist temples in the area. I got a nice treat one afternoon in between sessions when a local orchestra was rehearsing inside the building where we were having lunch. I think it was Beethoven being played, but I didn’t want to interrupt them only to look at the sheet music!

Kyoto Buddhist Temple

Photo of Arashiyama Kokuzoyamacho Buddhist temple in Kyoto courtesy of Mark Doliner.

– Clifford Lipscomb