标题: Economics of Japan--What Is Going on? [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 4-25-2015 11:59 标题: Economics of Japan--What Is Going on? Study of Japan has fallen out of favor, having been replaced by Sinology. So there are not many up-to-date studies (on Japan) as I would like. What triggers this posting is (3).
(1) Paul Krugman, The Japan Story. New York Times, Feb 5, 2013 (blog).
krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/the-japan-story
Note:
(a) "Dean Baker is annoyed at Robert Samuelson"
(i) Dean Baker
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Baker
(1958- ; PhD in economics from the University of Michigan)
(ii) Robert J Samuelson
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._Samuelson
(1945- ; received his bachelor's degree in 1967 from Harvard University, where he majored in government; He shares the same last name as Economics Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson, who also wrote for Newsweek, but they are not related)
But China only gave the precise figure only for 2013 (919.54m; reported in January 2014)--and otherwise gave net changes for years before and after.
(c) "I’ve used a log scale, so you can view vertical distances as percentage changes. If we look at growth from the early 1990s to the business cycle peak in 2007, we have growth of about 1.2% per year. That’s actually not bad; you can argue that demographically adjusted, the whole tale of Japanese stagnation is a myth. What is true is that there were two long periods of depressed output relative to trend, one in the mid-1990s and another, much worse, between 1997 and 2007 [sic; should be 2007-2010]."
(i) Not "log scale" or semi-log scale, but actually linear (scale).
(ii) View the updated version -- plus comparison with US and euro area (EA)--in
Paul Krugman, Notes on Japan. New York Times, Oct 28, 2014 (blog).
krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/notes-on-japan/
(graphic heading: "Real GDP per Working-Age Resident, 1993=1")
(d) Forget "liquidity trap" broached in the latter part of the blog.
(i) You may get an general idea of what the term means in
(A) www.investopedia.com/terms/l/liquiditytrap.asp
(B) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidity_trap
(ii) However, as the preceding Wikipedia page makes clear, this is a concept of Keynesians, rejected by Austrian school of economists.
“WHEN a country’s currency loses nearly a quarter of its value, its exports normally pick up. * * * Yet in Japan the relationship has broken down. The yen is down by around 22% since the end of 2012, but rather than rising, export volumes actually fell by 1.5% in 2013 and by 0.4% between January and August this year. Why?
“Another [the second] explanation is that carmakers, which account for a large chunk of exports, have kept prices in local currencies high. They have used the yen’s fall to bolster their profits rather than to sell more cars.
“The most worrying explanation of all [four explanations] is that Japanese products appear to have lost competitiveness, [less and less] exports since 1986.
(b) Five months later, Japan’s exports remain languid. See
Mitsuru Obe, Growth in Japan Exports Slows Sharply, Wall Street Journal, Mar 18, 2015 www.wsj.com/articles/japans-expo ... s-demand-1426639861
(“Economists blame Japan’s export sluggishness on companies’ unwillingness to take advantage of the weaker yen to cut prices. Japanese exporters have lowered the foreign-currency prices of their products by only 7% over the past two years, even though the yen has depreciated by around 30% against the dollar during that time, according to the Bank of Japan”)
Note: View the graphic, whose heading is “Grounded; Japan's export volumes have been largely flat over the past two years." As in everything else (such as computers), sales can be measured either by volume (unit shipped) or valu作者: choi 时间: 4-25-2015 12:02
(3)
(a) Thomas Streater, A Road Map to China’s Future from Japan’s Past; Mizuho’s Kengo Yoshida studies Japan’s history for lessons on China’s property, bank and leisure stocks. Barron's, Apr 24, 2015.
online.barrons.com/articles/a-road-map-to-chinas-future-from-japans-past-1429844646
Note:
(i) Kengo YOSHIDA 吉田 劍悟
(ii) "Just before the bubble burst, Japan’s total loans [debts] to GDP peaked at around 220%."
(iii) “In 1985, after the Plaza Accord, the yen appreciated and exporters had trouble and the economy went bad. So the government decided to lower interest rates.”
(A) Five nations (France, West Germany, Japan, UK and US) signed Plaza Accord on Sept 22, 1985 at Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. Wikipedia
(B) For the economic data, see next, which, however, did not contain Japan’s GDP growth rates in pertinent years.
“it [Plaza Accord] triggered an exceptionally large appreciation of the yen, amounting to 46 percent against the dollar and 30 percent in real effective terms by the end of 1986. (The deutsche mark appreciated similarly.) As a result, Japan’s export and GDP growth essentially halted in the first half of 1986.
"The [Japanese] authorities worried that higher interest rates would further strengthen the yen [higher interest rates would attract hot money from abroad coming into Japan, which inevitably cause yen appreciation (because, to park there, hot money has to been converted into local currency)] and feared that appreciation would eventually have serious effects on the economy. In the end, external demand [for Japanese goods] did indeed diminish. But it did not collapse. Real exports continued to grow in the five years after Plaza, by an average of 2½ percent a year (half the rate of the previous five years), while the current account surplus diminished by a moderate 2 percentage points of GDP. (Similarly, Germany’s currency appreciation failed to derail its export or GDP expansion, even with a smaller monetary response.)
Note:
(i) Box 1.4 appeared in
World Economic Outlook(WEO): Tensions from the Two-Speed Recovery; Unemployment, commodities, and capital flows. IMF, April 2011 (released Apr 11, 2011). www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2011/01/
(ii) "Japan was one of the world’s fastest-growing economies for three decades but has averaged only 1.1 percent real GDP growth since 1990, while prices have steadily declined. Consequently, the size of Japan’s economy [NOMINAL GDP] today is about the same as in the early 1990s."
(A) The "real" GDP growth rate subtract inflation (usually). See generally real versus nominal value (economics)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_versus_nominal_value_(economics)
(B) Figure 1.4.1 in Box 1.4 displayed Japan’s nominal GDP (1970-2009).
(C) Real GDP in Japan (DISCONTINUED); 2011: 4,383,325 Millions of 2011 US Dollars; Annual, Not Seasonally Adjusted, JPNRGDPR, Updated: 2012-12-10 10:32 AM CST. FRED, Dec 10, 2012.
research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/JPNRGDPR
(D) In other words, Japan’s economy has been growing since 1990 at the rate of 1.1% on average (this is what real GDP means). However, in terms of (when measured with) JAPANESE YEN, Japan’s GDP now is about the same as that of 1990.
(iii) Basically (3)(a) and (b) are in accord. But (3)(b)--the IMF analysis--is scholarly, explaining that Japan’s government overreacted SEVERAL times in the wake of yen shock (Japanese: en-daka 円高) following the Plaza Accord.
(A) Japan tried monetary policy (by changing interest rates). See Japanese Recession
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Recession
(after Plaza Accord: "The [Japanese] government attempted to offset the stronger yen by drastically easing monetary policy between January 1986 and February 1987. During this period, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) cut the discount rate in half from 5 percent to 2.5 percent. Following the economic stimulus, asset prices in the real estate and stock markets inflated, creating one of the biggest financial bubbles in history. The government responded by tightening monetary policy, raising rates five times, to 6 percent in 1989 and 1990. After these increases, the market collapsed")
Read this quotation while consulting the Figure 1.4.1 (left lower panel, whose heading was "Interest Rate Policy 1984-92")--in Box 1.4 of IMF.
(B) Japan also tried fiscal policy (cut tax and/or increase government spending through budget deficit). See Clyde Haberman, Japan Pushes Stimulus Plan, New York Times, May 30, 1987 www.nytimes.com/1987/05/30/busin ... -stimulus-plan.html
(Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone['s fiscal] $43 billion package contains $23.2 billion in spending on national and local public works program, $7.1 billion in tax cuts, $5 billion to provide lower-rate housing loans, $1 billion in direct Government purchases of foreign goods [the last to trim Japan's trade surplus, which was $89.7 billion] * * * But perhaps the program's greatest significance is its indication that the Government has finally broken from the fiscal austerity that Mr Nakasone has preached since taking office in 1982. * * * It [package] would be an addition to the regular budget of $386 billion for the 1987 fiscal year that began April 1. * * * The package was considerably larger than had been anticipated")