Low inflation was once a welcome to both policy makers and the public. However, Japan’s experience during the 1990’s changed the consensus view on price of economists and central banks around the world. Facing deflation and zero interest bound at the same time, Bank of Japan had difficulty...

Using a simple stochastic growth model, this paper demonstrates that the coefficient of variation of aggregate output or GDP does not necessarily go to zero even if the number of sectors or economic agents goes to infinity. This phenomenon known as non-self-averaging implies that even if the...

We apply a complex Hilbert principal component analysis (CHPCA) to a set of Japanese economic data collected over the last 32 years, comprising individual price indices of middle classification level (imported goods, producer goods, consumption goods and services), Indices of Business Conditions...