Since the 1990s, fund raising behavior of Japanese companies has significantly changed. We conducted empirical studies based on the companies listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Our findings can be summarized as follows. (i) The debt-equity ratio of companies with relatively...

As short-term interest rates have become higher and more volatile since the end of the quantitative easing policy in March 2006, an interest rate swap, referred to as an OIS (Overnight Index Swap), which exchanges the uncollateralized overnight call rate over a specified period and a certain...

Since the financial instability during 1997-98 subsided, the Japanese corporate bond market has seen a substantial narrowing of credit spreads under the strong monetary easing by the Bank of Japan. With the narrowing of credit spreads, bond investors seem to have become cautious of a large...

Interest rates on Japanese government bonds (JGBs) fluctuated widely in 2003. The interest rate on 10-year JGBs gradually declined from the beginning of 2003, reaching the mid 0.4% range in June. But then, interest rates rose sharply (i) from late June to early July and (ii) from late August to...

Transactions in the yen money markets have become active since the end of the quantitative easing policy (QEP) in March 2006. In particular, transactions by foreign financial institutions have been increasing in the offshore markets including the FX swap and euroyen deposit markets, as well as...

The Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on bank lending practices at large Japanese banks (hereafter the 'loan survey') provides us with quantitative information on banks' views on the funding needs of firms and households as well as their own lending attitudes, which could not be grasped from...

Japan's financial structure has changed since the later half of the 1990s. The results of the Japanese "Big Bang" initiative have gradually manifested themselves in the domestic financial structure. The key factor here was the financial crisis of 1997- 1998. Throughout the 1990s, the household...

This short paper shows that under the Bank of Japan's Zero Interest Rate Policy and Quantitative Monetary Easing, not just the levels of money market rates but also the dispersion of rates across banks have fallen to near zero. Using the data on individual banks' Negotiable Certificate of...

Using the interest rates on Negotiable Certificate of Deposit issued by individual banks, we first show that under the Bank of Japan's Zero Interest Rate Policy and Quantitative Monetary Easing Policy, not just the levels of money market rates but also the dispersion of rates across banks have...

During the financial crisis, Korea responded to dislocations in the FX swap market by both drawing on its swap line with the Federal Reserve and using its own international reserves to provide dollars to domestic banks. We show that the Bank of Korea's use of the Fed swap line was very effective...