Japan＇s Bubble,the USA＇s Bubble and China＇s Bubble

This paper compares the three recent episodes of boom and bust cycles in asset prices: Japan in the late 1980s to the 1990s; the USA since the mid‐1990s; and China during the past decade. Although we have not yet seen a collapse of Chinese property prices, their increases so far are comparable to those in the other two episodes and a careful comparative study is warranted. The present paper first examines the behavior of asset prices, of property prices in particular, in the three cases, and highlights some similarities. The paper emphasizes the role played by extremely easy monetary policy in generating bubble‐like asset price behavior in the three cases. The reason for easy monetary policies is investigated. In the US case, the monetary authority was concerned about the risk of deflation in the early to mid‐2000s. The experiences of Japan and China are quite similar in that the monetary authorities of both countries were seriously concerned about the possible deflationary effects of exchange rate appreciation on the economy. The implications of such a finding for the future of Chinese macroeconomic policy are discussed.     

日本学者关于本国通货紧缩问题研究述评

2002年初始日本经济走出低迷,但时至今日通货紧缩却一直与其相伴随。日本学者对其进行了深入研究,所涉及的问题包括:关于通货紧缩概念的界定标准,涉及是否应将经济低迷纳入其中。关于通货紧缩的成因,在需求方面涉及泡沫经济的后遗症、通货紧缩预期和工资持续下降等;在供给方面涉及日本的规制改革和技术进步、国际分工中的低工资压力和经常项目顺差所造成的日元升值等。关于通货紧缩的机理,学者们援引马克思、凯恩斯和哈耶克等经典理论对其进行了说明。关于通货紧缩的影响,涉及对实体经济的危害、代际之间收入转移弊端和就业环境恶化等。关于通货紧缩的治理,涉及加强金融和财政政策的调控力度、消除通货紧缩预期和政府干预无效论等。跟踪这些研究无疑是一项有意义的工作。     

One Country,Two Prices? A Study of the Deflationary Effect of Price Convergence on Hong Kong*

Consumer prices in Hong Kong at the time of writing have declined by 15 percent from the peak recorded in 1998. We investigate the deflationary impact on Hong Kong of price convergence with the Mainland China, using 1990–2001 annual data on commodity prices in the former and in major cities of the latter. We find evidence of price convergence between the two economies over the past decade. Furthermore, price convergence is estimated to have accounted for one‐fifth of the deflation in Hong Kong. The results suggest that a significant portion of the deflation in Hong Kong is attributable to a process of structural adjustment due to growing economic integration with the Mainland.     

The recent deflationary gap in Japan: a quantitative measurement

Undoubtedly, the deflationary gap in the economy of recent Japan is very great. However, the White Paper series of EPAJ (Economic Planning Agency of Japanese Government) in recent years depends on a questionable interpretation of the concept of the gap, so that its analyses have been very misleading. In this paper, the author made up his mind to try to contrive an alternative way for measurement of the deflationary gap. The estimating procedure in the present study is as follows: 1. Computation of aggregate full employment and full utilization indexes of labor force and enterprises’ real fixed capital stock, by the use of original weights and adjusted weights, 2. Experimental-exogenous setting of the δ ratio, i.e., the ratio of the yearly rate of technological progress(%) to the yearly growth rate of real GNP(%) 3. Computation of the indexes of full-capacity GNP corresponding to each δ ratio, 4. Measurement of the deflationary gap. In the light of the computed results, we conclude that the deflationary gap in the recent (1997) Japan would amount to around 30–40% of the potential full-capacity GNP. The excessive breeding of deflationary gap in the Japanese economy was not a cyclical phenomenon but a long-term cumulative trend.     

Home value misestimation and household behavior: Evidence from China

Households often make errors when self-assessing their housing wealth. By using the Chinese Households Finance Survey, we show that Chinese urban households systematically overestimate their home value. This bias is significantly related to household consumption: a one standard deviation increase in the extent of estimation bias is associated with a 10% increase in household consumption. Our main results are robust against a variety of robustness checks, e.g., taking into account the expectations of future home price, using the interviewee's estimation as the instrumental variable for the household self-estimation, implementing the hedonic model on an external data source to assess real homevalue, etc.. Further, we show that overestimated households are more likely to take risk in financial market, and have a larger amount of immediate and conspicuous consumption. These findings have policy implications for the recent debate about property tax, indicating the unintended consequences of property tax through providing more precise information about home value.     

Monetary policy under a liquidity trap: Simulation evidence for the euro area

In this paper, we analyze the conduct of monetary policy under a zero nominal interest-rate bound (hereafter ZIB) in a model economy of the euro area, namely that of the Area Wide Model. The aggregate euro-area economy is modeled to have relatively sluggish adjustment properties and a private sector with mainly backward-looking expectations. For a given ZIB benchmark, we consider variations in the monetary-policy reaction function to minimize the macro-economic consequences of such a deflationary regime. We rank the effectiveness of these remedial policies using a number of metrics and relate our results to features and properties of the model economy. J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (3) (2006) 338–363.     

The impact of retirement on household consumption in Japan

Using monthly data from the Japanese Family Income and Expenditure Survey, we examine the impact of retirement on household consumption. We find little evidence of an immediate change in consumption at retirement, on average, in Japan. However, we find a decrease in consumption at retirement for low income households that is concentrated in food and work-related consumption. The availability of substantial retirement bonuses to a large share of Japanese retirees may help smooth consumption at retirement. We find that those households that are more likely to receive such bonuses experience a short-run consumption increase at retirement. However, among households that are less likely to receive a retirement bonus, we find that consumption decreases at retirement.     

Inflation in developing Asia

Inflation emerged as the single biggest macroeconomic challenge confronting developing Asia during 2007–2008, although inflationary pressures have abated since the second half of 2008 due to the global crisis. This paper empirically examines the relative importance of different sources of inflation in developing Asia. In particular, it tests the widely held view that the region's inflationary surge during 2007–2008 was primarily the result of external price factors such as oil and food shocks. Our central empirical result is that, contrary to popular misconception, Asia's inflation is largely homegrown and has arisen due to excess aggregate demand and inflationary expectations, rather than external price shocks. This suggests monetary policy will remain a powerful tool in fighting inflation in Asia, as well as in defusing the risks of deflation.     

The role of preconceived ideas in macroeconomic policy: Japan's experiences in two deflationary periods

This paper examines the role of misleading economic ideas that most likely promoted the economic disasters of the two deflationary periods in Japanese economic history. Misleading ideas deepened the depression during the interwar years, and erroneous thinking has prolonged the stagnation of the Japanese economy since the 1990s. While the current framework of political economy is based on the self-interest of political agents as well as of voters, we highlight the role of ideas in policy making, in particular, in the field of macroeconomy where the incidence of a particular policy is not clear to the public. Using two significant examples, this paper illustrates the role of preconceived ideas, in contrast to economic interests, as dominant forces influencing economic policy making.     

Are Japanese stock prices too high?

This paper studies the behavior of Japanese stock prices, especially that of the price earnings ratio (PER) and the price dividend ratio (PDR) in the 1980s. It finds that movements in fundamentals such as the interest rate and the growth rate together with the widespread practice of cross share holdings between corporations fail to explain the behavior of PER and PDR in the 1980s. The sharp increases in the Japanese PER and PDR in the 1980s are due to one of the following three causes: bubbles, declines in risk premium, and expectations of land price inflation. The paper argues that the latter two may have been important features of the Japanese economy in the 1980s.     

The causes of Japan's ‘lost decade’: The role of household consumption

In this paper, I analyze the causes of the prolonged slowdown of the Japanese economy in the 1990s and find that the stagnation of investment, especially private fixed investment, was the primary culprit. I then investigate the causes of the stagnation of household consumption during the 1990s and find that the stagnation of household disposable income, the decline in household wealth, and increased uncertainty about the future are among the contributing factors. Finally, I consider whether demand side factors or supply side factors were more important as causes of the prolonged slowdown of the Japanese economy in the 1990s and conclude that the former (especially misguided government policies) were probably more important.     

货币政策对房地产市场的调控：中、日比较

中国的房地产价格从2003年以来持续快速上涨，政府及中央银行虽然采取了一系列调控政策抑制房价，但房地产泡沫并未显著萎缩。本文通过比较中国与日本泡沫经济时期房地产泡沫的成因、货币政策调控目标、调控工具以及政策时滞的异同，分析了导致中国货币政策低效的主要原因，在汲取日本的教训和经验基础上，结合我国的具体情况，提出了增强货币政策对房地产市场调控效果的政策建议。     

Consumer response to the 1998 tax cut: Is a temporary tax cut effective?

The Japanese Government implemented two tax cut packages in 1998 to alleviate the weakness of the economy. Those were temporary and the eligible amount for each household was based on the number of family members. Using monthly data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey, we explore the variation in the impact of the tax cut episode across families with different numbers of family members to identify its impact on consumption. Our estimates indicate that consumers responded to the 1998 tax cut with the implied MPC of 0.6 on impact with stimulating services consumption but the MPC declined in subsequent months. J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (2) (2006) 269–287.     

The consumption–wealth ratio,real estate wealth,and the Japanese stock market

The first contribution of this paper, in following the works of Lettau and Ludvigson, 2001a, Lettau and Ludvigson, 2001b, is to construct a Japanese consumption–wealth ratio data series and to examine whether it explains Japanese stock market data. We find that the consumption–wealth ratio does predict future stock returns, but the evidence is weaker than that from US data, and the source of predictability is limited to observations after the collapse of the asset bubble at the beginning of the 1990s. The consumption–wealth ratio also helps to explain cross-sectional Japanese stock returns. The second contribution of the paper is that we propose new consumption–wealth ratio that more explicitly deal with household real estate wealth utilizing Japanese aggregate-level data. Such “real estate augmented” consumption–wealth ratio perform better than the consumption–wealth ratio calculated with only financial wealth data. While the scaled factor model proposed by Lettau and Ludvigson performs relatively well with Japanese data, the book-to-market related anomaly pointed out by Chan et al. (1991) and Jagannathan et al. (1998) remains strong.     

Consumption based estimates of urban Chinese growth

This paper estimates the household income growth rates implied by food demand in a sample of urban Chinese households in 1993–2005. Our estimates, based on Engel curves for food consumption, indicate an average per capita income growth of 6.8% per year in 1993–2005. This figure is slightly larger than the 5.9% per year obtained by deflating nominal incomes by the CPI. We attribute this discrepancy to a small bias in the CPI, which is of a similar magnitude to the one often associated with the CPI in the United States. This result supports the view that Chinese price statistics are reliable. Our estimates indicate stronger gains among poorer households, suggesting that urban inflation up to 2005 in China was “pro-poor,” in the sense that the increase in the cost of living for poorer households was smaller than for the average one.     

中间品价格对价格粘性的影响——基于动态随机一般均衡模型的研究

本文主要以2003年第一季度至2018年第四季度的产出、CPI通货膨胀率和PPI通货膨胀率的季度数据为基础,通过在新凯恩斯DSGE模型基础上融入投入-产出框架,将中间品价格引入到新凯恩斯菲利普斯曲线之中,构建了包含中间品价格的新凯恩斯DSGE模型,并对我国的价格粘性程度进行研究。结果表明,使用该模型估计出来的价格粘性与基于微观数据的实证研究结果近乎一致,最终品的价格调整周期为2.32个季度,中间品的价格调整周期为1.59个季度,说明我国中间品的价格要比最终品的价格更加灵活。     

Individual well-being in urban China: The role of income expectations

Using household survey data, we study the determinants of individual well-being in urban China, emphasizing particularly the role of income expectations. First, we find that individual well-being increases contemporaneously with own income and decreases with community's average income, consistent with findings reported in previous studies. This result holds when we replace income with consumption and when we consider employment and health status of other family members. Second and more important, we find that income expectations have a positive and significant effect on individual well-being. This result is robust to alternative model specifications and to controls for optimistic personality. Instrumental variable estimates and endogeneity tests suggest that the positive relationship between well-being and income expectations is genuine. Our finding has the potential to explain why reported well-being has declined in China despite the spectacular economic growth in the past decades.     

Deflation,Productivity Shocks and Gold: Evidence from the 1880–1914 Period

In this paper we examine the sources and impact of deflation on the growth experiences of the four dominant countries on the gold standard in the period 1880–1913: the United States, The United Kingdom, France and Germany. We distinguish between good deflation, (driven by positive aggregate supply shocks) and bad deflation (driven by aggregate demand shocks). We use an empirical Blanchard/Quah model which decomposes the behaviour of prices, output and the money stock into the impact of shocks such as a world price level shock, a domestic supply shock, and domestic demand shocks including a shock to the domestic gold stock. Our key finding is that the European economies were essentially classic in the sense that output was mainly supply driven and that money was neutral even when country specific gold stocks are included. In the United States, however, we observe both good and bad deflation.     

Purchasing power parity: Granger causality tests for the yen–dollar exchange rate

The paper analyses the causality between the Japanese prices and the yen–dollar exchange rate. It explains the long-term appreciation trend of the Japanese yen and why the Japanese yen proved strong even during the economic slump of the 1990s. The paper suggests that the appreciation of the Japanese yen forced the Japanese enterprises into price reductions and productivity increases, which put a floor under the high level of the yen and, thus, initiated rounds of appreciation. This corresponds to the conjecture of a vicious (virtuous) circle of appreciation and price adaptation. Further, there is evidence that the yen-appreciation has been accommodated by the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy. This corresponds to the conjecture that the recent Japanese deflation is imposed from outside via the exchange rate.     

Vulnerability of households to health shocks: an Indonesian study

We examine the effect of illness and injury shocks on work hours and household consumption in Indonesia. Using indices of activities of daily living to measure health shocks, we find that both labour hours and household consumption are influenced by health shocks to household heads. Further, farm households seem to be more seriously affected than non-farm households by health shocks. However, the magnitude of the health effect on household consumption is small, implying that even farm households are well protected on average by the presence of formal and informal risk-coping mechanisms.