Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Inflation Targeting and Japan: Why has the Bank of Japan not Adopted Inflation Targeting?

Contents:

Author Info

  • Takatoshi Ito

Abstract

The paper aims at explaining why the Bank of Japan has not adopted inflation targeting, despite calls for such a policy. Disclosed minutes of the Monetary Policy Meetings of the Bank of Japan, after March 1998, as well as Speeches by its members give clues to changing reasons against inflation targeting. Inflation targeting was not adopted in Japan in the early years (the first wave of interest in1999-2000) because the Board members were not sure about an appropriate price index, and a specific number for an appropriate inflation rate. A Bank of Japan study, completed in October 2000, did not give any clear answers. Inflation targeting was not adopted in later years (2001-2003), despite the inflation-targeting-like commitment strategy adopted in March 2001, because the Board members thought that conventional tools to increase the inflation rate were not available. As such, they thought that announcing a target with a positive inflation rate would damage confidence. In terms of introducing unconventional measures, the Bank of Japan worried about the transmission channels and the damage to its balance sheet. Towards the end of Governor Hayami fs term, the views against inflation targeting turned sharply negative, as news reports suggested that it may be linked to the new Governor fs appointment. Therefore, , why inflation targeting was not adopted, can be explained and understood from a political economy perspective.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10818.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 10818.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Oct 2004
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10818

Note: HE ME
Contact details of provider:
Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone: 617-868-3900
Email:
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Erica L. Groshen & Mark E. Schweitzer, 1996. "The effects of inflation on wage adjustments in firm-level data: grease or sand?," Staff Reports 9, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  2. Frederic S. Mishkin, 1997. "The causes and propagation of financial instability : lessons for policy makers," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 55-96.
  3. David Card & Dean Hyslop, 1996. "Does Inflation "Grease the Wheels of the Labor Market"?," NBER Working Papers 5538, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Kuroda, Sachiko & Yamamoto, Isamu, 2003. "Are Japanese Nominal Wages Downwardly Rigid? (Part I): Examinations of Nominal Wage Change Distributions," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 21(2), pages 1-29, August.
  5. Takatoshi Ito & Frederic S. Mishkin, 2004. "Two Decades of Japanese Monetary Policy and the Deflation Problem," NBER Working Papers 10878, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Takatoshi Ito & Kimie Harada, 2000. "Japan Premium and Stock Prices: Two Mirrors of Japanese Banking Crises," NBER Working Papers 7997, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Frederic S. Mishkin, 1991. "Asymmetric Information and Financial Crises: A Historical Perspective," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Markets and Financial Crises, pages 69-108 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. Mishkin, Frederic S., 1978. "The Household Balance Sheet and the Great Depression," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(04), pages 918-937, December.
  9. Kuroda, Sachiko & Yamamoto, Isamu, 2003. "The Impact of Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity on the Unemployment Rate: Quantitative Evidence from Japan," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 21(4), pages 57-85, December.
  10. Takeo Hoshi & Anil Kashyap, 2004. "Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan: The Road to the Future," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582481, November.
  11. David E. Lebow & David J. Stockton & William L. Wascher, 1995. "Inflation, nominal wage rigidity, and the efficiency of labor markets," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 95-45, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  12. James Clouse & Dale Henderson & Athanasios Orphanides & David Small & Peter Tinsley, 2000. "Monetary policy when the nominal short-term interest rate is zero," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-51, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  13. Shigenori Shiratsuka, 1999. "Measurement errors and quality-adjustment methodology: lessons from the Japanese CPI," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Q II, pages 2-13.
  14. Frederic S. Mishkin, 1996. "The Channels of Monetary Transmission: Lessons for Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 5464, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  15. David E. Lebow & Raven E. Saks & Beth Anne Wilson, 1999. "Downward nominal wage rigidity: evidence from the employment cost index," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1999-31, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  16. Takatoshi Ito, 1991. "The Japanese Economy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262090295, November.
  17. George A. Akerlof & William R. Dickens & George L. Perry, 1996. "The Macroeconomics of Low Inflation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1), pages 1-76.
  18. Bernanke, Ben S, 1983. "Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in Propagation of the Great Depression," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(3), pages 257-76, June.
  19. Okina, Kunio & Shiratsuka, Shigenori, 2004. "Policy commitment and expectation formation: Japan's experience under zero interest rates," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 75-100, March.
  20. Warwick J. McKibbin, 2002. "Macroeconomic Policy in Japan," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 1(2), pages 133-165.
  21. Thomas F. Cargill & Michael M. Hutchison & Takatoshi Ito, 2001. "Financial Policy and Central Banking in Japan," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262032856, November.
  22. Kuroda, Sachiko & Yamamoto, Isamu, 2003. "Are Japanese Nominal Wages Downwardly Rigid? (Part II): Examinations Using a Friction Model," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 21(2), pages 31-68, August.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Alan J. Auerbach & Maurice Obstfeld, 2003. "The Case for Open-Market Purchases in a Liquidity Trap," NBER Working Papers 9814, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Baltensperger, Ernst & Fischer, Andreas M. & Jordan, Thomas J., 2007. "Strong goal independence and inflation targets," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 88-105, March.
  3. Dai, Meixing & Sidiropoulos, Moïse, 2005. "Flexibility in inflation targeting, financial markets and macroeconomic stability," MPRA Paper 13864, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  4. Claudio Morana, 2005. "The Japanese deflation: has it had real effects? Could it have been avoided?," Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 37(12), pages 1337-1352.
  5. Gerd Weinrich & Luca Colombo, 2005. "Money, Inventories and Underemployment in Deflationary Recessions," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 156, Society for Computational Economics.
  6. Takatoshi Ito & Frederic S. Mishkin, 2004. "Two Decades of Japanese Monetary Policy and the Deflation Problem," NBER Working Papers 10878, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Burkhard, Lukas & Fischer, Andreas M., 2009. "Communicating policy options at the zero bound," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 742-754, September.
  8. Luca Colombo & Gerd Weinrich, 2006. "The Role of Expectations in a Macroeconomic Model with Inventories," Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 65, Society for Computational Economics.
  9. Tom Cargill & Federico Guerrero, 2006. "A ‘Second-Best’ Rationale to Deflationary Monetary Policy in Japan," Working Papers 06-009, University of Nevada, Reno, Department of Economics & University of Nevada, Reno , Department of Resource Economics.
  10. Tom Cargill & Federico Guerrero, 2006. "A Reassessment of the Problems with Interest Targeting: What Have We Learned from Japanese Monetary Policy?," Working Papers 06-010, University of Nevada, Reno, Department of Economics & University of Nevada, Reno , Department of Resource Economics.
  11. Hiroyuki Taguchi & Woong-Ki Sohn, 2010. "Inflation Targeting and Pass-through Rate in East Asian Economies," Macroeconomics Working Papers 23115, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10818

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.