From April 2013 until May 2016, Japan's monetary base rose from ¥155 trillion to ¥387 trillion as part of the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) quantitative and qualitative easing (QQE) monetary policy for achieving a price stability target of 2%. Although the main objective of the BOJ's quantitative...

In the face of interest rates having hit their zero lower bound in major economies, large-scale asset purchases have become an important weapon of central banks in recent years. It is, however, not clear whether and under which circumstances such policy measures produce the desired effects. This...