David Murakami

I was born and raised in Perth, Australia, where I had a fairly quiet and working-class upbringing. My childhood was spent mostly on video games, reading fiction, watching sci-fi, and watching breakfast TV anime shows. Standard affair. Video games and an obsession with how things work led me to get into hobbyist PC building, and the start of my interest in technology – specifically integrated circuits, semiconductors, and system design.

As I graduated high school, my curiosity into how systems (like an electrical circuit, combustion engine, or the solar system) worked and operated, as well as my parents’ constant financial struggles, led me to take up an interest in the study of economics. My parents were good intentioned, hard working people; yet they would constantly undermine their hard work with irresponsible decisions or a lack of financial awareness. As an impressionable teenager, this always struck me as odd, and I could never understand why many people like my parents struggled to build wealth and financial success. I believed that by understanding how individuals make choices, and how the broader macroeconomy worked, I could resolve the puzzle that my family was in. Thus began my formal studies into economics.

During my undergrad years, I also undertook language, history, and international studies in Japan. Japan would continue to play an important role in my life and early career, and I continued to return to the country to visit relatives and friends each summer holiday. I can’t quite put it into succinct enough words, but I have always had a love-hate relationship with Japan. Sometimes it feels like home away from home, sometimes it feels absolutely alien.

But economics remained front and centre my academic focus while at university. I did attempt to branch out into finance, banking, and even Chinese studies, but none of it stuck. Finance, particularly in the recovery period after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, was particularly unappealing. Seemingly, none of the experts were able to do the fundamental requirement of the industry: accurately price risk and assets. Furthermore, from my viewpoint, it was primarily central bankers equipped with economics PhDs that were cleaning up the systematic mess and disaster left behind in the wake of the GFC. It was around this time that I also began to explore more widely into politics and political thought. Given my working class roots and belief in the study of economics, it was only natural that I gravitated toward the likes of former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating and other Machiavelli-like political figures.

I became increasingly curious and interested in individuals who held a strongly-held vision for how they believed the world worked or ought to work. My economic beliefs started to form by reading into David Hume, John Locke, John Maynard Keynes, and Thomas Malthus. I then began to appreciate the academic contributions to the field of economics from Ben Bernanke, Peter Diamond, Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, Robert Lucas, Paul Samuelson, Tom Sargent, Robert Solow, and Joseph Stiglitz. More recently, I believe that economists such as Ha-Joon Chang, Paul Krugman, and Thomas Piketty have been incredibly important in making economics accessible to the masses – something which, unfortunately, many in the field struggle with. More generally, I enjoy the works of Paulo Freire, Antonio Gramsci, A. C. Grayling, Christopher Hitchens, and Ivan Illich, and essays or speeches from Noam Chomsky, the aforementioned Paul Keating, and Cornell West. Mind you, my interests in thinkers reach beyond the realms of just economics and politics. Commercial visionaries Steve Jobs and his former-right hand man, Jony Ive; scientists such as Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, and Alan Turing; and engineers such as Jim Keller also greatly fascinate me too.

I won’t bore you with any career or academic details here. I think it’s important that I explain who and what has influenced my thinking. Understanding how things work – or the firm belief that we may have in how the world ought to work – has continued to motivate and underline every decision I make, both in my career and personal life. Even when things may seem chaotic and disorderly, I believe it’s all just one necessary journey towards a stable new equilibrium.

Education

• Master of Philosophy - MPhil University of Oxford (2019 — 2021)
• Master of Arts (M.A.) Keio University (2017 — 2019)
• National Parliamentary Fellowships Program (Japan) The Australian National University (2016 — 2016)
• Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Bachelor of Economics (Honours) (BEc (Hons)) The University of Western Australia (2008 — 2013)
• Summer School Program in Japanese Language and Society Sophia University (2014 — 2014)
• Asian Studies Program Kansai Gaidai University (2010 — 2011)

Companies

• Research Assistant Saïd Business School, University of Oxford (2021)
• Lecturer St Hilda's College, University of Oxford (2021)
• Undergraduate Admissions Support Officer University of Oxford (2021)
• Lead Graduate Assistant University of Oxford (2021 — 2021)
• Examinations and Collections Marker University (2021 — 2021)
• Research Assistant University of Oxford (2020 — 2020)
• Technical Expert Apple (2018 — 2019)
• Teaching Assistant Keio University (2017 — 2019)
• Technical Specialist Apple (2017 — 2018)