Standard theoretical models predict that higher inflation expectations generate greater current consumer spending at the zero lower bound of interest rates. However, a recent empirical study using US micro data finds negative results for this relationship. We use micro data for Japan, which has...

How do financial factors due to credit-market imperfections affect economic fluctuations? This paper calibrates a dynamic general equilibrium model incorporating credit-market imperfections using Japanese data. The model exhibits financial accelerator effects, the mechanism whereby credit-market...

This paper investigates what can be learned about the effects of monetary policy on firm investment after the collapse of the asset price bubble in Japan. By estimating firm investment functions based on corporate panel data, the paper reveals that the monetary easing after the bubble burst...

In this paper, we set out the JEM (Japanese Economic Model), a large macroeconomic model of the Japanese Economy. Although the JEM is a theoretical model designed with a view to overcoming the Lucas (1976) critique of traditional large macroeconomic models, it can also be used for both...

To what extent did the Bank of Japan's liquidity facilities for corporate financing reduce commercial paper (CP) issue-rates in Japan? To answer this question, we propose a simple structural model that illustrates the market for the CP operations and their effects on the CP primary market. Based...

To what extent did the Bank of Japan's liquidity provisions reduce the premium on money market rates over the year-ends in Japan? To answer this question, we propose a simple structural model that illustrates the year-end operations and the year-end interbank money markets. Based on the...

In this paper, I investigate the output composition of the monetary policy transmission mechanism in Japan. The predominant channel via which monetary policy affects output in Japan is usually thought to be the investment channel, namely the process whereby a change in the interest rate alters...

The inflation rate in Japan has been decreasing since the beginning of the 1990s. Although weak domestic demand most probably explains a large part of the story of this deflationary trend, external factors such as the recent increase in the number of cheap imported goods, have played an...