Reflecting recent economic developments in Japan, there is a growing interest in how monetary policy should be conducted under low inflation and nominal interest rates. Among several proposed solutions, the conventional wisdom seems to be to commit to lower future short-term nominal interest...

In this paper, we decompose oil price changes into their component parts following Kilian (2009) and estimate the dynamic effects of each component on industry-level production and prices in the U.S. and Japan using identified VAR models. The way oil price changes affect each industry depends on...

Past government spending in Japan is currently imposing a significant fiscal burden that is reflected in a net debt to output ratio near 150 percent. In addition, the aging of Japanese society implies that public expenditures and transfers payments relative to output are projected to continue to...

This paper revisits the events of the 1980s bubble in Japan in light of the lessons learned from the subprime crisis in the United States. Our focus is on the role played by sectoral developments in the financial system in Japan. We highlight the transformation of a subset of non-financial firms...

Historical experience is often invoked in the modern debate on competition among reserve currencies, yet little is known about quantitative aspects or institutional features of reserve management. By drawing on newly obtained data on foreign exchange reserves, especially those broken down by...