Download or read book Japan s Policy Trap written by Akio Mikuni and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004-05-13 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until quite recently, the Japanese inspired a kind of puzzled awe. They had pulled themselves together from the ruin of war, built at breakneck speed a formidable array of export champions, and emerged as the world's number-two economy and largest net creditor nation. And they did it by flouting every rule of economic orthodoxy. But today only the puzzlement remains—at Japan's inability to arrest its economic decline, at its festering banking crisis, and at the dithering of its policymakers. Why can't the Japanese government find the political will to fix the country's problems? Japan's Policy Trap offers a provocative new analysis of the country's protracted economic stagnation. Japanese insider Akio Mikuni and long-term Japan resident R. Taggart Murphy contend that the country has landed in a policy trap that defies easy solution. The authors, who have together spent decades at the heart of Japanese finance, expose the deep-rooted political arrangements that have distorted Japan's monetary policy in a deflationary direction. They link Japan's economic difficulties to the Achilles' heel of the U.S. economy: the U.S. trade and current accounts deficits. For the last twenty years, Japan's dollar-denominated trade surplus has outstripped official reserves and currency in circulation. These huge accumulated surpluses have long exercised a growing and perverse influence on monetary policy, forcing Japan's authorities to support a build-up of deflationary dollars. Mikuni and Murphy trace the origins of Japan's policy trap far back into history, in the measures taken by Japan's officials to preserve their economic independence in what they saw as a hostile world. Mobilizing every resource to accumulate precious dollars, the authorities eventually found themselves coping with a hoard they could neither use nor exchange. To counteract the deflationary impact, Japanese authorities resorted to the creation of yen liabilities unrelated to production via the large

Download or read book Financial Policy and Central Banking in Japan written by Thomas F. Cargill and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2001-01-03 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes how the bank-dominated financial system—a key element of the oft-heralded "Japanese economic model"—broke down in the 1990s and spawned sweeping reforms. Japan's financial institutions and policy underwent remarkable change in the past decade. The country began the 1990s with a heavily regulated financial system managed by an unchallenged Ministry of Finance and ended the decade with a Big Bang financial market reform, a complete restructuring of its regulatory financial institutions, and an independent central bank. These reforms have taken place amid recession and rising unemployment, collapsing asset prices, a looming banking crisis, and the lowest interest rates in the industrial world. This book analyzes how the bank-dominated financial system—a key element of the oft-heralded "Japanese economic model"—broke down in the 1990s and spawned sweeping reforms. It documents the sources of the Japanese economic stagnation of the 1990s, the causes of the financial crisis, the slow and initially limited policy response to banking problems, and the reform program that followed. It also evaluates the new financial structure and reforms at the Bank of Japan in light of the challenges facing the Japanese economy. These challenges range from conducting monetary policy in a zero-interest rate environment characterized by a "liquidity trap" to managing consolidation in the Japanese banking sector against the backdrop of increasing international competition.

Download or read book Japan s Lost Decade written by Naoyuki Yoshino and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-09-20 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses Japan’s long-term economic recession and provides remedies for that recession that are useful for other Asian economies. The book addresses why Japan’s economy has stagnated since the bursting of its economic bubble in the 1990s. Its empirical analysis challenges the beliefs of some economists, such as Paul Krugman, that the Japanese economy is caught in a liquidity trap. This book argues that Japan’s economic stagnation stems from a vertical “investment–saving” (IS) curve rather than a liquidity trap. The impact of fiscal policy has declined drastically, and the Japanese economy faces structural problems rather than a temporary downturn. These structural problems have many causes: an aging demographic (a problem that is frequently overlooked), an over-reliance by local governments on transfers from the central government, and Basel capital requirements that have made Japanese banks reluctant to lend money to start-up businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises. This latter issue has discouraged Japanese innovation and technological progress. All these issues are addressed empirically and theoretically, and several remedies for Japan’s long-lasting recession are provided. This volume will be of interest to researchers and policy makers not only in Japan but also the People’s Republic of China, many countries in the eurozone, and the United States, which may face similar challenges in the future.

Download or read book Japan the System That Soured written by Richard Katz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-04 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After seven long years of economic malaise, it is clear that something has gone awry in Japan. Unless Japan undertakes sweeping reform, official forecasts now warn, growth will steadily dwindle. How could the world's most acclaimed economic miracle have stumbled so badly? As this important book explains, the root of the problem is that Japan is still mired in the structures, policies, and mental habits of the 1950s-1960s. Four decades ago while in the "catch-up" phase of its economic evolution, policies that gave rise to "Japan, Inc". made a lot of sense. By the 1970s and 1980s, when Japan had become a more mature economy, "catch-up economics" had become passe, even counterproductive. Even worse, in response to the oil shocks, Japan increasingly used its industrial policy tools. not to promote "winners", but to shield "losers" from competition at home and abroad. Japan's well-known aversion to imports is part and parcel of this politically understandable, but economically self-defeating, pattern. The end result is a deformed "dual economy" unique in the industrial world. Now this "dualism" is sapping the strength of the entire economy. The protection of the weak is driving Japan's most inefficient companies to invest offshore instead of at home. Without sweeping reform, real recovery will prove elusive. The challenging thesis articulated in this book is receiving widespread media attention in the United States and Japan and is sure to provoke continuing debate and controversy.

Download or read book The Escape from Balance Sheet Recession and the QE Trap written by Richard C. Koo and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-10-27 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compare global experiences during the balance sheet recession and find out what is needed for a full recovery The Escape from Balance Sheet Recession and the QE Trap details the many hidden dangers remaining as the world slowly recovers from the balance sheet recession of 2008. Author and leading economist Richard Koo explains the unique political and economic pitfalls that stand in the way of recovery from this rare type of recession that was largely overlooked by economists. Koo anticipated the current predicament in the West long before others and issued warnings in his previous books: Balance Sheet Recession and The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics. This new book illustrates how history is repeating itself in Europe while the United States, which learnt from the Japanese experience, is doing better by avoiding the fiscal cliff. However, because of the liberal dosage of quantitative easing already implemented, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan may face a treacherous path to normalcy in what Koo calls the QE Trap. He argues that it is necessary to understand balance sheet recession in order to resolve the Eurozone crisis, particularly the competitiveness problems. Koo issues warnings against those who are too ready to argue for structural reforms when the problems are actually with balance sheets. He re-examines Japan's two decades of experiences with this rare recession and offers an insider view on the Abenomics. On China, readers will gain a very different historical perspective as Koo argues that western commentators have forgotten their own history when they talk about the re-balancing of the Chinese economy. Learn from Japan which experienced the same predicament afflicting the West fifteen years earlier Discover how unwinding of quantitative easing will affect the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, as well as the emerging world Examine solutions to the Eurozone problems caused by two balance sheet recessions eight years apart Gain insight into China's problems from the West's own experiences with urbanisation Koo, who developed the concept of balance sheet recession based on Japan's experience, took the revolution in macroeconomics started by John Maynard Keynes in 1936 to a new height. The Escape from Balance Sheet Recession and the QE Trap offers the world cure for balance sheet recession.

Download or read book Monetary Policy and Japan s Liquidity Trap written by Lars E. O. Svensson and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 13 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Bending Adversity written by David Pilling and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-02-24 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A]n excellent book...” —The Economist Financial Times Asia editor David Pilling presents a fresh vision of Japan, drawing on his own deep experience, as well as observations from a cross section of Japanese citizenry, including novelist Haruki Murakami, former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, industrialists and bankers, activists and artists, teenagers and octogenarians. Through their voices, Pilling's Bending Adversity captures the dynamism and diversity of contemporary Japan. Pilling’s exploration begins with the 2011 triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown. His deep reporting reveals both Japan’s vulnerabilities and its resilience and pushes him to understand the country’s past through cycles of crisis and reconstruction. Japan’s survivalist mentality has carried it through tremendous hardship, but is also the source of great destruction: It was the nineteenth-century struggle to ward off colonial intent that resulted in Japan’s own imperial endeavor, culminating in the devastation of World War II. Even the postwar economic miracle—the manufacturing and commerce explosion that brought unprecedented economic growth and earned Japan international clout might have been a less pure victory than it seemed. In Bending Adversity Pilling questions what was lost in the country’s blind, aborted climb to #1. With the same rigor, he revisits 1990—the year the economic bubble burst, and the beginning of Japan’s “lost decades”—to ask if the turning point might be viewed differently. While financial struggle and national debt are a reality, post-growth Japan has also successfully maintained a stable standard of living and social cohesion. And while life has become less certain, opportunities—in particular for the young and for women—have diversified. Still, Japan is in many ways a country in recovery, working to find a way forward after the events of 2011 and decades of slow growth. Bending Adversity closes with a reflection on what the 2012 reelection of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and his radical antideflation policy, might mean for Japan and its future. Informed throughout by the insights shared by Pilling’s many interview subjects, Bending Adversity rigorously engages with the social, spiritual, financial, and political life of Japan to create a more nuanced representation of the oft-misunderstood island nation and its people. The Financial Times “David Pilling quotes a visiting MP from northern England, dazzled by Tokyo’s lights and awed by its bustling prosperity: ‘If this is a recession, I want one.’ Not the least of the merits of Pilling’s hugely enjoyable and perceptive book on Japan is that he places the denunciations of two allegedly “lost decades” in the context of what the country is really like and its actual achievements.” The Telegraph (UK) “Pilling, the Asia editor of the Financial Times, is perfectly placed to be our guide, and his insights are a real rarity when very few Western journalists communicate the essence of the world’s third-largest economy in anything but the most superficial ways. Here, there is a terrific selection of interview subjects mixed with great reportage and fact selection... he does get people to say wonderful things. The novelist Haruki Murakami tells him: “When we were rich, I hated this country”... well-written... valuable.” Publishers Weekly (starred): "A probing and insightful portrait of contemporary Japan."

Download or read book Japanization written by William Pesek and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth look at Japan's economic malaise and the steps it must take to compete globally In Japanization, Bloomberg columnist William Pesek—based in Tokyo—presents a detailed look at Japan's continuing twenty-year economic slow-down, the political and economic reasons behind it, and the policies it could and should undertake to return to growth and influence. Despite new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's promise of economic revitalization, investor optimism about the future, and plenty of potential, Japanization reveals why things are unlikely to change any time soon. Pesek argues that "Abenomics," as the new policies are popularly referred to, is nothing more than a dressed-up version of the same old fiscal and monetary policies that have left Japan with crippling debt, interest rates at zero, and constant deflation. He explores the ten forces that are stunting Japan's growth and offers prescriptions for fixing each one. Offers a skeptical counterpoint to the popular rosy narrative on the economic outlook for Japan Gives investors practical and detailed insight on the real condition of Japan's economy Reveals ten factors stunting Japan's growth and why they are unlikely to be solved any time soon Explains why most of what readers believe they know about Japan's economy is wrong Includes case studies of some of the biggest Japanese companies, including Olympus, Japan Airlines, Sony, and Toyota, among others For many investors, businesspeople, and economists, Japan's long economic struggle is difficult to comprehend, particularly given the economic advantages it appears to have over its neighbors. Japanization offers a ground-level look at why its problems continue and what it can do to change course.

Download or read book Japanese Monetary Policy written by Kenneth J. Singleton and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How has the Bank of Japan (BOJ) helped shape Japan's economic growth during the past two decades? This book comprehensively explores the relations between financial market liberalization and BOJ policies and examines the ways in which these policies promoted economic growth in the 1980s. The authors argue that the structure of Japan's financial markets, particularly restrictions on money-market transactions and the key role of commercial banks in financing corporate investments, allowed the BOJ to influence Japan's economic success. The first two chapters provide the most in-depth English-language discussion of the BOJ's operating procedures and policymaker's views about how BOJ actions affect the Japanese business cycle. Chapter three explores the impact of the BOJ's distinctive window guidance policy on corporate investment, while chapter four looks at how monetary policy affects the term structure of interest rates in Japan. The final two chapters examine the overall effect of monetary policy on real aggregate economic activity. This volume will prove invaluable not only to economists interested in the technical operating procedures of the BOJ, but also to those interested in the Japanese economy and in the operation and outcome of monetary reform in general.

Download or read book Princes of the Yen written by Richard Werner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-04 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This eye-opening book offers a disturbing new look at Japan's post-war economy and the key factors that shaped it. It gives special emphasis to the 1980s and 1990s when Japan's economy experienced vast swings in activity. According to the author, the most recent upheaval in the Japanese economy is the result of the policies of a central bank less concerned with stimulating the economy than with its own turf battles and its ideological agenda to change Japan's economic structure. The book combines new historical research with an in-depth behind-the-scenes account of the bureaucratic competition between Japan's most important institutions: the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan. Drawing on new economic data and first-hand eyewitness accounts, it reveals little known monetary policy tools at the core of Japan's business cycle, identifies the key figures behind Japan's economy, and discusses their agenda. The book also highlights the implications for the rest of the world, and raises important questions about the concentration of power within central banks.

Download or read book The Money Trap written by R. Pringle and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-06-07 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world economy is caught in a money trap. Existing monetary arrangements meet the needs neither of the ageing societies of the West nor of younger emerging economies. This in-depth analysis explains how the world got into the grip of global finance - and how it can escape, with a growing demand for reform.

Download or read book The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics written by Richard C. Koo and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-11-21 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The revised edition of this highly acclaimed work presents crucial lessons from Japan's recession that could aid the US and other economies as they struggle to recover from the current financial crisis. This book is about Japan's 15-year long recession and how it affected current theoretical thinking about its causes and cures. It has a detailed explanation on what happened to Japan, but the discoveries made are so far-reaching that a large portion of economics literature will have to be modified to accommodate another half to the macroeconomic spectrum of possibilities that conventional theorists have overlooked. The author developed the idea of yin and yang business cycles where the conventional world of profit maximization is the yang and the world of balance sheet recession, where companies are minimizing debt, is the yin. Once so divided, many varied theories developed in macro economics since the 1930s can be nicely categorized into a single comprehensive theory- The Holy Grail of Macro Economics

Download or read book Snow on the Pine written by Kyoko Hatakeyama and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2010 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ch. 1. Unpacking Japanese foreign policy : the case against conventional wisdom -- pt. I. A modern historical background. ch. 2. Tumultuous Japan : regional diplomacy 1868-1965. ch. 3. A junior partner : Japanese entanglements with the United States and Asia 1965-1980. ch. 4. Rising power : Japan attempts to recapture its traditional role in the 1980s -- pt. II. The 1900s - case studies in diplomacy. ch. 5. Becoming a full-fledged power in the 1990s : the purpose behind peacekeeping operations. ch. 6. More peacekeeping operations : the case of East Timor. ch. 7. Hampered diplomacy : Japanese overtures to North Korea. ch. 8. Using economic diplomacy : Japan and the Asian meltdown. ch. 9. Intellectual leadership : Japan's relationship with Vietnam. ch. 10. The consequences of Japanese diplomacy -- pt. III. The economic and political context of Japanese foreign policy. ch. 11. Tatemae and Honne : understanding the post-war Japanese economy. ch. 12. The long arm of the Japanese economy :the role of foreign direct investment in post-war Japan.

Download or read book Japan s Financial Crisis and Its Parallels to U S Experience written by Ryōichi Mikitani and published by Peterson Institute. This book was released on 2000 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan is only one of many industrialized economies to suffer a financial crisis in the past 15 years, but it has suffered the most from its crisis--as measured in lost output and investment opportunities, and in the direct costs of clean-up. Comparing the response of Japanese policy in the 1990s to that of US monetary and financial policy to the American Savings and Loan Crisis of the late 1980s sheds light on the reasons for this outcome. This volume was created by bringing together several leading academics from the United States and Japan--plus former senior policymakers from both countries--to discuss the challenges to Japanese financial and monetary policy in the 1990s. The papers address in turn both the monetary and financial aspects of the crisis, and the discussants bring together broad themes across the two countries' experiences. As the papers in this Special Report demonstrate, while the Japanese government's policy response to its banking crisis in the 1990s was slow in comparison to that of the US government a decade earlier, the underlying dynamics were similar. A combination of mismanaged partial deregulation and regulatory forebearance gave rise to the crisis and allowed it to deepen, and only the closure of some banks and injection of new capital into others began the resolution. The Bank of Japan's monetary policy from the late 1980s onward, however, was increasingly out of step with US or other developed country norms. In particular, the Bank of Japan's limited response to deflation after being granted independence in 1998 stands out as a dangerous and unusual stance.

Download or read book End This Depression Now written by Paul Krugman and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-04-30 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times best-selling call to arms from Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman. The Great Recession is more than four years old—and counting. Yet, as Paul Krugman points out in this powerful volley, "Nations rich in resources, talent, and knowledge—all the ingredients for prosperity and a decent standard of living for all—remain in a state of intense pain." How bad have things gotten? How did we get stuck in what now can only be called a depression? And above all, how do we free ourselves? Krugman pursues these questions with his characteristic lucidity and insight. He has a powerful message for anyone who has suffered over these past four years—a quick, strong recovery is just one step away, if our leaders can find the "intellectual clarity and political will" to end this depression now.

Download or read book By Order of the President written by Greg Robinson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On February 19, 1942, following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and Japanese Army successes in the Pacific, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed a fateful order. In the name of security, Executive Order 9066 allowed for the summary removal of Japanese aliens and American citizens of Japanese descent from their West Coast homes and their incarceration under guard in camps. Amid the numerous histories and memoirs devoted to this shameful event, FDR's contributions have been seen as negligible. Now, using Roosevelt's own writings, his advisors' letters and diaries, and internal government documents, Greg Robinson reveals the president's central role in making and implementing the internment and examines not only what the president did but why. Robinson traces FDR's outlook back to his formative years, and to the early twentieth century's racialist view of ethnic Japanese in America as immutably "foreign" and threatening. These prejudicial sentiments, along with his constitutional philosophy and leadership style, contributed to Roosevelt's approval of the unprecedented mistreatment of American citizens. His hands-on participation and interventions were critical in determining the nature, duration, and consequences of the administration's internment policy. By Order of the President attempts to explain how a great humanitarian leader and his advisors, who were fighting a war to preserve democracy, could have implemented such a profoundly unjust and undemocratic policy toward their own people. It reminds us of the power of a president's beliefs to influence and determine public policy and of the need for citizen vigilance to protect the rights of all against potential abuses.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Politics written by Robert J. Pekkanen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-25 with total page 1001 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Book Abstract and Keywords: The study of Japanese politics has flourished over the past several decades. This Handbook provides a state-of-the-field overview for students and researchers of Japanese. The volume also serves to introduce Japanese politics to readers less familiar with Japan. In addition, the volume has a theme of "evaluating Japan's democracy." Taken as a whole, the volume provides a positive evaluation of the state of Japan's democracy. The volume is divided into two parts, roughly corresponding to domestic Japanese politics and Japan's international politics. Within the domestic politics part, there are four distinct sections: "Domestic Political Actors and Institutions," covering the Japanese Constitution, electoral systems, prime minister, Diet, bureaucracy, judiciary, and local government; "Political Parties and Coalitions," covering the Liberal Democratic Party, coalition government, Kōmeitō, and the political opposition; "Policymaking and the Public," covering the policymaking process, public opinion, civil society, and populism; and, "Political Economy and Social Policy," covering industrial, energy, social welfare, agricultural, monetary, and immigration policies, as well as social inequality. In the international relations part, there are four sections: "International Relations Frameworks," covering grand strategy, international organizations, and international status; "International Political Economy," covering trade, finance, foreign direct investment, the environment, economic regionalism, and the linkage between security and economics; "International Security," covering remilitarization, global and regional security multilateralism, nuclear nonproliferation, naval power, space security, and cybersecurity; and, "Foreign Relations" covering Japan's relations with the United States, China, South Korea, ASEAN, India, the European Union, and Russia. Keywords: international relations, comparative politics, democracy, international order, alliances, space security, elections, Liberal Democratic Party, multilateralism, remilitarization, international organizations, populism, civil society, coalitions, political parties, trade, finance monetary policy, foreign direct investment, cybersecurity"--