Japan
Bank of Japan Preview
April 6, 2010
This week’s meeting of the Bank of Japan Policy Board, which ends Wednesday, is squeezed between a meeting three weeks ago when fixed-asset operations to provide short-term liquidity were doubled to 20 trillion yen and another at the end of April when new semi-annual price and growth forecasts will be unveiled. Those other meetings dwarf […] More
Expected Long-Term Economic Growth in Selected Advanced Economies
March 8, 2010
This is the time of year when forecasters first wheel out projections for the next calendar year. Since over nine months remain before the period begins and more than 21 months remain before it ends, the forecasts are good proxies for estimates of long-term trend growth. One sense of consensus forecasts is published each month […] More
A Couple of Falling Stars
February 23, 2010
A column in Tuesday’s Financial Times observes that some forty years in which the United States and Japan have held the top two slots in national GDP rankings will end sometime this year when China overtakes Japan. Although those Asian economies remain far apart on a per capita basis, Japan’s star has indeed fallen many […] More
Fourth-Quarter Economic Growth in The United States and Japan
February 15, 2010
The United States and Japan had similar growth in GDP, consumption, business investment, and exports last quarter. The following table expresses fourth quarter against third quarter growth off GDP and its main components — consumption C, non-residential investment I, residential investment H, government spending G, exports X and imports M — as percentage changes at […] More
Japanese Bank Lending Growth Sinks to Four-Year Low
February 8, 2010
The second week of February got off to a fairly quiet start. The weekend meeting in Canada of G-7 finance ministers and central bankers did not release a formal statement. Europeans attending that meeting made reassuring comments about the Greek government’s commitment to reducing its deficit. U.S. Super Bowl won Sunday by New Orleans Saints […] More
Bond Market Hysteria: A Japanese Case Study
February 4, 2010
Global financial moments are in the grip of an “enough already” psychology. Risk aversion has spiked because of fear that fiscal deficits have gone beyond the point of safe return and that much higher inflation is inevitable. European peripheral nations like Greece, Spain and Ireland have been the main object of the panic, but concern […] More
Bank of Japan: New Quarterly Forecasts But No Policy Changes
January 26, 2010
The target interest rate on uncollateralized overnight money was voted by a unanimous 7-0 decision to remain at 0.1%, its level since December 2008. No new unconventional policy measures were taken by the Policy Board following five hours and 38 minutes of deliberations over two days. Growth and price forecasts, last made in October, were […] More
Bank of Japan Preview: Preparing to Ease Soon
January 25, 2010
The advent of the Bank of Japan’s two-day policy meeting on Monday and Tuesday has seen a rise in market chatter about prospects for more Japanese quantitative easing, if not this week then sometime this quarter. Some of the central bank’s most dramatic policy changes have historically been unveiled either in September shortly before the […] More
U.S. and Canadian Consumer Price Inflation
January 20, 2010
Seasonally adjusted consumer prices dipped 0.1% in December but firmed 0.4% in the United States. The December-over-December CPI increases were respectively 1.8% in the U.S. and 1.3% in Canada. Canada enjoyed an even greater advantage in comparisons of whole 2009 inflation, where the readings were merely 0.1% in Canada but 2.7% on average in the […] More
Commercial Trade Flows in November
January 12, 2010
Monday brought news that Chinese exports in November were 17.7% larger than in November 2008 level, including advances of 15.9% in sales to the United States and 10.2% to the EU. There had not been an on-year increase in total exports since September 2008. Imports shot up 55.9% in the latest statement year. China’s economy […] More
