The paper aims at explaining why the Bank of Japan has not adopted inflation targeting, despite calls for such a policy. Disclosed minutes of the Monetary Policy Meetings of the Bank of Japan, after March 1998, as well as Speeches by its members give clues to changing reasons against inflation...

This paper reviews Japanese monetary policy over the last two decades with an emphasis on the experience of deflation from the mid-1990s. The paper is quite critical of the conduct of monetary policy, particularly from 1998 to 2003. The Bank of Japan's rhetoric was not helpful in fighting...

It is a common view that private information in the foreign exchange market does not exist. We provide evidence against this view. The evidence comes from the introduction of trading in Tokyo over the lunch hour. Lunch return variance doubles with the introduction of trading, which cannot be due...

Using the "firm" quotes obtained from the tick-by-tick EBS (electronic broking system that is a major trading platform for foreign exchanges) data, it is found that risk-free arbitrage opportunities--free lunch--do occur in the foreign exchange markets, but it typically last only a few seconds....

We empirically examine the order flows spillovers between Nasdaq and the Forex markets in 2008 and 2009. With emphasis on a role of high-frequency traders (HFTs) who aggregate information between the two markets as well as within each market, our results show that HFTs in Nasdaq trade...

This study examines whether pre-crisis international reserve accumulations, as well as exchange rate and reserve policy decisions made during the global financial crisis, can help to explain cross-country differences in post-crisis economic performance. Our approach focuses not only on the total...

This paper examines the efficiency of the forward yen/dollar market using micro survey data. We first argue that the conventional tests of efficiency (unbiasedness) of the forward rate or of the survey forecasts do not correspond directly to the zero-profit condition. Instead, we use the survey...

It is a common view that private information in the foreign exchange market does not exist. We provide evidence against this view. The evidence comes from the introduction of trading in Tokyo over the lunch-hour. Lunch return variance doubles with the introduction of trading, which cannot be due...

The paper tests the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis (rapid economic growth is accompanied by real exchange rate appreciation because of differential productivity growth between tradable and nontradable sectors) using data of the APEC economies. Japan, Korea, Taiwan and, to a lesser extent, Hong...

Macroeconomic consequences of a large currency depreciation among the crisis-hit Asian economies had varied from one country to another. Inflation did not soar in most Asian countries, including Thailand and Korea, after the exchange rate depreciated during the crisis. Indonesia, however,...