h. d. karunaratne received a japanese government postgraduate research, (monbukagakusho) scholarship to pursue his masters and doctoral research degrees in japan, from april 1993 to february 2000. he was bestowed a gold medal for the best researcher in the faculty of management finance, university of colombo at the annual postgraduate convocation of the university of colombo held at bandaranaike memorial international conference hall (bmich) in 2002. he was appointed as an invited professor at the faculty of economics in hosei university, tokyo, japan from april 2006 to march 2008 and april 2017