Friday, December 21, 2012

The Election of Shinzo Abe: Voters Mull over Monetary Policy

In the world's top creditor nation, a change in policy might soon be in store. Last week, hawkish opposition leader Shinzo Abe was elected to his second term. Abe's first term in 2006-2007 collapsed in the aftermath of Agricultural Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka's suicide. Adopting an overtly expansionist economic stance for this election, Abe called for "unlimited" monetary policy easing in order to combat deflation and higher spending on both public works and national defense last month.

Among the key issues in the election, was the general timidity on the part of the BOJ to aggressively pursue inflation targets. Japan's financial markets, as well as its overall economy has been consistently undermined by deflation over the past 15 years.  

What it comes down to is there has been a feeling among the Japanese electorate, that monetary policy should be more aggressively expansionist. So far there have been five rounds of monetary stimulus in Japan. In February of this year, the BOJ set a short-term inflation goal of 1% and a long-term inflation goal of 2%. A move referred to as "meaningless" by Abe. 

BOJ's Independence
The Bank of Japan's independence is being called into question. Although a 1997 reorganization of the BOJ granted the central bank more independence, making the BOJ one of the last central banks in the world to gain independence, this electoral cycle saw both political parties campaigning on monetary policy issues. Both parties promised to call for more monetary easing. 

The new government has the power to appoint a majority bloc to the BOJ's policy board. It is likely this will happen. Furthermore, Abe has threatened to revise the Bank of Japan Act. 

What Does this Mean for Japan's Economy?
In general, there is a consensus that Japan must combat its deflation at all costs if indeed it is going to regain its lost economic growth and dynamism. 

While some may talk of structural reforms, the fact that Japan has an extremely high median age is -and thus a high dependency ratio- is a fact that cannot easily be maneuvered around. On the other hand, three prominent features of Japan's economy are its deflation rate, its extremely high savings rate, and the fact that Japan's investors have massive amounts invested overseas, making Japan the world's largest creditor. Expansionary monetary policy might be a positive step in addressing these issues.

Monetary stimulus would also help reduce the price of export-dependent Japan's currency on international markets, providing a boon to Japanese manufacturers.  
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Max Berre is an economist at the EDHEC-Risk Institute (Ecole Des Hautes Etudes Commerciales du Nord) who has worked as a sovereign debt expert at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington and has taught financial economics at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.