現在地 HOME > 掲示板
> 国家破産２８ > 548.html
★阿修羅♪
|
現在地 HOME > 掲示板
> 国家破産２８ > 548.html
★阿修羅♪
|
|
Different this time, maybe
Aug 22nd 2003
From The Economist Global Agenda
A stockmarket rally and stronger growth in Japan. But we’ve been here before
A BUBBLE, a bust and a bounce or two. Japan’s economy has had everything in the past 15 years except a sustainable boom. Now, at least, Japanese stocks are enjoying a rally. The Nikkei 225 closed the week just below 10,300. The last time it spent a week above 10,000 was July of 2002. Of course, “Nikkei 10,000” is not much of a rallying cry for a stockmarket that once topped 38,000, but the index is still up about a third since April.
More importantly, Japan this month recorded its sixth successive quarter of growth, with GDP rising 2.3% at an annual rate in the second quarter. This comfortably surpassed expectations and nearly matched America’s surprisingly speedy growth over the same period. The second half of the year looks equally promising: the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says its leading indicator for Japan has risen for two consecutive months.
Previous bounces have been driven by government spending or export demand, but this one seems broader. Spending by Japanese businesses rose by 1.3% in the second quarter, and even private consumption was up by 0.3%. Japan’s Cabinet Office has watched the recovery spread throughout those economic activities that normally lead the cycle, registering 81.8 on its “diffusion” index in June. (A figure above 50 shows that more sectors are expanding than contracting.)
The economy is growing, but prices are still falling. Deflation was 2.1% in the second quarter, less than in the previous three months but fast enough to ensure that Japan’s economy is still shrinking in nominal terms: output is rising, but the yen value of that output is falling. By some estimates, the recovery will have to last up to two years to eliminate Japan’s excess capacity and bring deflation to a halt.
With prices continuing to fall, and nominal interest rates around zero, Japan remains caught in its long-standing liquidity trap. People hold money, which gains in value as long as prices fall, rather than spending it or investing it in anything riskier or less liquid. Until people believe that prices will rise, conventional monetary policy is as ineffectual as “pushing on a piece of string” (to quote Keynes’s famous phrase). But the string-pushers at the Bank of Japan may finally be exerting some pull over the economy. Under instructions from the Ministry of Finance, they have succeeded in holding the yen down this year by buying up $74 billion of foreign currency, mostly dollars.
The central bank can pay for these dollars either by selling some of the bonds it owns or by printing money. In the past, it has always sold bonds. Economists call this “sterilised” intervention: the bank changes the value of the yen without changing the money supply. But now, according to the Financial Times, the bank has stopped sterilising its purchases of dollars. It is, in effect, buying dollars with freshly printed money, keeping the yen competitive while also boosting the money supply. Some economists, such as Allan Meltzer of Carnegie Mellon University, have been urging the Bank of Japan to do this for years. Mr Meltzer points out that America escaped from a liquidity trap of its own in 1938 by letting the monetary base grow as foreign exchange (and gold) flowed in.
Japan’s escape may still be some way off. Meanwhile, Junichiro Koizumi, Japan’s prime minister, must stand for re-election next month as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Mr Koizumi’s approval ratings in the country at large are a respectable 50%, but it is the party, not the public, that will vote on September 20th. Mr Koizumi wants to retain his popularity with the people while also mending fences with rival party factions. He may not be able to do both.
One point of contention is spending on “public works”. In its efforts to stimulate the economy, Japan has run up a public debt of 140% of GDP with little to show for it. Mr Koizumi has promised to restrain this spending. One of his potential rivals for the LDP leadership, Shizuka Kamei, wants to keep the gold-plated taps running. But outlays on infrastructure suffer from diminishing returns. Keynes, again, recognised the problem: “Two pyramids, two masses for the dead, are twice as good as one; but not so two railways from London to York.” Japan now has three bridges to Shikoku (to cite a favourite example of Robert Alan Feldman at Morgan Stanley). Mr Koizumi thinks this enough. Mr Kamei, it seems, would build a fourth.
In truth, neither Mr Koizumi nor Mr Kamei offers a convincing way out of Japan’s fiscal-policy dilemma. Japan’s debt is worryingly high, and to keep adding to it by splurging on public works of questionable value may be counter-productive. More spending means higher debt. If Japanese households expect future taxes to rise to service that debt, they will save more, neutralising any fiscal stimulus. But fiscal retrenchment might also backfire. One of Mr Koizumi’s predecessors helped to kill off a fledgling recovery in 1997 with an ill-timed hike in the consumption tax. Adam Posen, an economist at the Institute for International Economics in Washington, reckons that Japan’s public debt has grown mainly because of falling revenues, not higher spending. Anything that jeopardises the present recovery will also jeopardise the public finances.
Japan needs a more creative approach to fiscal policy. Several economists have suggested cutting the consumption tax now while promising to raise it steeply in the future. That would encourage consumers to spend now, while also reassuring them that Japan’s public finances will be repaired in due course. Alternatively, Mr Koizumi needs to persuade Toshihiko Fukui, governor of the Bank of Japan, to finance tax cuts directly by printing money.
Mr Koizumi and Mr Fukui cannot rely on the fragile recovery to do their work for them. The danger is that a few bits of good economic news will make the case for decisive and creative policy less pressing. But without a sustained fiscal and monetary push, the recovery is likely to fizzle out as quickly as the recoveries of 1996-7 and 2000. Japan’s “lost decade” might yet stretch into a lost generation.
題名には必ず「阿修羅さんへ」と記述してください。