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Fiscal Sustainability in Japan

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  • Shiro Armstrong and Tatsuyoshi Okimoto

Abstract

Japanese government debt is at unprecedented levels with a gross debt to gross domestic product ratio of over 230 per cent and a net debt to gross domestic product ratio of 150 per cent. There are three big challenges to fiscal sustainability: the huge amount of government bonds outstanding; continued budget deficits; and the growing age-related spending. The debt is sustainable as long as the market as a whole believes it is. The path to fiscal consolidation requires increasing the tax rate, reducing spending, broadening the tax base and growing the economy out of trouble. The longer the delay before moving to a more sustainable consolidation path, the larger the risks and closer Japan moves towards a financial crisis. The policy goal is to keep government debt sustainable, not to repay it all. Just as Japan has done since the burst of the asset bubble in the early 1990s, there is every likelihood that the Japanese economy will muddle through.

Suggested Citation

  • Shiro Armstrong and Tatsuyoshi Okimoto, 2016. "Fiscal Sustainability in Japan," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies 201620, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    • Handle: RePEc:een:appswp:201620
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    File URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/app5.133/epdf
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    Cited by:

    1. Magazzino, Cosimo & Brady, Gordon L. & Forte, Francesco, 2019. "A panel data analysis of the fiscal sustainability of G-7 countries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 20(C).
    2. María del Carmen Ramos-Herrera & Simón Sosvilla-Rivero, 2020. "Fiscal Sustainability in Aging Societies: Evidence from Euro Area Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-20, December.
    3. Makoto Saito, 2021. "Public Bonds as Money Substitutes at Near-Zero Interest Rates: Disequilibrium Analysis of the Current and Future Japanese Economy," Advances in Japanese Business and Economics, in: Strong Money Demand in Financing War and Peace, pages 79-119, Springer.
    4. Saito, Makoto & 齊藤, 誠, 2020. "Long-run mild deflation under fiscal unsustainability in Japan," Discussion Paper Series 703, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.

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