Title: Japan's Lowflation Problem
Headings: Japan's Lowflation Problem
May 30, 2021,05:30pm EDT
Brazil’s Hit Bottom. But Maybe Not Bolsonaro.
Japan's Lowflation Problem

Content: So have its interest rates. And the Bank of Japan has been doing QE longer than any other central bank: its first experiment with large-scale asset purchases was between 2002-6. The current Governor of the Bank of Japan, Haruhiko Kuroda, is throwing everything he has at Japan’s lowflation problem. The Bank of Japan is buying up Japanese government bonds as fast as the government can issue them, and is also buying corporate debt, ETFs and REITs. The interest rate on excess reserves held by banks is negative. But Japan’s lowflation remains as intractable as ever. Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda points at a journalist to ask a question during a press ... [+]
conference in Tokyo on July 31, 2018. - Japan's central bank revised down inflation forecasts on July 31, making only minor tweaks to a monetary policy that has so far fallen short of lifting prices and boosting the world's third-largest economy. ( Photo by BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images)
Early in 2018, Japan’s inflation reached 1.5%.