type="main" <p>Japan has suffered from a long-lasting but mild deflation since the latter half of the 1990s. Estimates of a standard Phillips curve indicate that a decline in inflation expectations, the negative output gap, and other factors such as a decline in import prices and a higher exchange...</p>

Japan has suffered from long-lasting but mild deflation since the latter half of the 1990s. Estimates of a standard Phillips curve indicate that a decline in inflation expectations, the negative output gap, and other factors such as a decline in import prices and a higher exchange rate, all...

Credit ratings have become an indispensable part of the fundamental information infrastructure of credit markets. Credit ratings cover a wide range of issuers including governments, governmental organizations, municipalities, nonfinancial companies and financial institutions, and also cover...

Japanese government bonds (JGBs) have a range of uses in broad market trading. To ensure that market transactions involving JGBs operate smoothly, sufficient liquidity in JGB markets is an important condition. There are a number of concepts for evaluating liquidity in JGB markets, and the...

One of the most important agendas for the revival of the Japanese economy is to improve direct financing channels for firms. Over the past few months, financial experts were invited to a "Study Group on the Securitization of Small to Medium-sized Enterprises' Receivables," held at the Financial...

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...

The Japanese CPI inflation rates have been declining since the first quarter of 1991. The CPI inflation rates recorded negative values on the second and third quarters of 1995 and, since then, have been in the narrow range of zero and one percent. Near-zero inflation rates for about four years...