Is the Bank of Japan Finally Synchronizing with their Peers?

Described as an ultra-lax monetary policy, Japan’s economic model has baffled the world. Not because the East Asian nation is a poster child of rising from self-ruination in the post second world war era, but for stage-managing its monetary policy for a long time, managing its economy very differently to the rest of the world.

- Jennifer Paldano Goonewardane

As Japan put up its interest rates in March this year, after almost a seventeen-year hiatus, the last in 2007, analysts consider it a move in the right direction, the much-needed intervention by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) in a country that has long been trying to grow its economy through several calculated measures, which had failed to stoke the desired growth momentum in the economy. Unlike the rest of the world, Japan has followed a ‘stuck to its own guns’ monetary policy to steer the economy from years of negative inflation. Commentators view the Bank of Japan’s latest move as a sign that the regulator is abandoning its ‘economic experiments’ and departing from its negative interest rate regime.

The 1980s were Japan’s boom years, a journey of over four decades since its downfall from the Second World War to becoming the global role model of vision and innovation, efficient management practices, and industrial trailblazing. The world hailed Japan’s resurgence as an economic miracle. The economy became so enormous in this period that it accounted for nearly ten percent of the global economy. Accompanying this recovery was a robust stock market reaching record highs. Real estate prices soared to such an extent that some commentators have pointed out that the value of Japan’s imperial palace equaled the value of the California State in the US. All this meant the people were awash with money, stimulating heavy spending.