An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on the weekend:
Since Abenomics hasn’t included concrete economic reforms, Japan is sliding back into its status quo before Mr. Abe was elected in late 2012.
Says:
- Japan’s economic woes before Mr. Abe were not fundamentally monetary, and they still aren’t
- Businesses that didn’t see sufficient reason to invest when interest rates were an ultralow 0.1% in 2012 wouldn’t be persuaded by an additional round of quantitative easing
- Exchange-rate appreciation was not at the core of Japan’s loss of export competitiveness before Mr. Abe came to office
Says it should now be obvious that the monetary component of Abenomics is hardly a panacea, and urges Abe “to offer a more substantive agenda”
More at the link: The End of Japan’s Inflation Affair
