Liquidity in the Japanese government bond (JGB) market has improved significantly as a result of a series of market reforms implemented since 2000. Market liquidity is a measure of "the level of ease with which trading can be conducted in the market." In order to facilitate trading in the JGB...

The malfunction of the monetary transmission mechanism in Japan has been cited as one of the main reasons why the quantitative easing of monetary policy undertaken by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has been insufficient in achieving the objective of an early escape from deflation and the economic...

The BOJ recently announced its intention to purchase asset backed securities (ABS) whose underlying assets are closely related to SME economic activities. One important motivation for this policy arises from the idea that utilizing modern financial tools, i.e., securitization, can be a possible...