INACTION may at first glance seem more timid than pulling out the monetary bazooka—but it took nerve for Haruhiko Kuroda to hold fire at the Bank of Japan’s monetary-policy meeting on October 30th. The central bank’s policy board, which Mr Kuroda effectively controls, voted 8-1 to maintain the existing programme of quantitative easing (QE, or printing money to buy bonds) at its current level of ¥80 trillion ($660 billion) a year. Given that Japan is officially back in mild deflation for the first time since 2013, when the BoJ began QE, it was a bold decision not to act. The BoJ’s mandate, after all, is to produce sustained inflation of 2%.
But Mr Kuroda kept his faith in gradually recovering growth, and in a range of measures which, he believes, suggest robust underlying price rises. In July the central bank began publishing a new index of inflation, known as “new core CPI”, which strips out both the price of energy and of fresh food. It shows prices rising at a healthy pace. In August the new gauge rose by 1.1%, and in September by 1.2% (compared to falls in core CPI of -0.1% for both months).
The BoJ duly highlighted the new index in its...Continue reading
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