Causes and Remedies of the Japan's Long‐lasting Recession: Lessons for China

Japan has suffered from sluggish economic growth and recession since the early 1990s. In this paper, we analyze the causes of the prolonged slowdown of the Japanese economy (the lost decade). Economics Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has argued that Japan's lost decade is an example of a liquidity trap. However, our empirical analysis shows that stagnation of the Japanese economy comes from its vertical IS curve rather than a horizontal LM curve, so the Japanese economy has been facing structural problems rather than a temporary downturn. The vertical IS curve is caused by an insensitivity of investment to a lower interest rate partly because of the decline of sales due to the aging population and firms not wanting to invest. The structural problems come from the aging demographic, which is often neglected by scholars and policy‐makers, and also from the allocation of transfers from the central government to local governments, and the unwillingness of Japanese banks to lend money to startup businesses and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), mainly because of Basel capital requirements. Many countries, like China, are expected to face similar issues, particularly given the aging population. The present paper will address why the Japanese economy has been trapped in a prolonged slowdown and provide some remedies for revitalizing the economy.     

日本扩张性财政政策失效的原因分析

90年代泡沫景气崩溃后，日本政府多次运用扩张性财政政策来刺激经济，却始终没走出泡沫经济的阴影．究其原因，可能是多个方面综合作用的结果。而从投资乘数理论出发，深入分析90年代日本财政政策失效的原因，则主要是因为：公共投资所产生的引致投资没达到预期效果，并对民间投资产生了挤出效应，加之景气预测始终没有形成，致使边际消费倾向低，从而导致公共投资乘数缩小。     

Consumer confidence and economic stagnation in Japan

This paper examines whether self-fulfilling expectations could have been the cause of the economic stagnation experienced by Japan in the 1990s. A real business cycle model with indeterminacy of equilibria and variable capital utilization is used to simulate the economy of Japan. Driven solely by expectation shocks, the model can replicate the economic bubble that occurred in the late 1980s and the prolonged slowdown that occurred in the 1990s. These results suggest that expectations should not be excluded as a possible source of Japan's recent economic difficulties.     

Haste Makes Waste: Policy Options Facing China after Reaching the Lewis Turning Point

This paper provides a framework for assessing the health of China's macro economy and the sustainability of economic growth by combining supply‐side and demand‐side factors and by considering their relationship at different stages of development. As the Chinese economy passed through its Lewis turning point, weakened supply‐side factors caused its growth to slow. The increasing concern regarding the economic slowdown has induced both the central and local governments to implement various stimulus plans through instruments of macroeconomic, industrial and regional policies. By examining where the imbalances of the Chinese economy really lie and investigating the determinants of the current slowdown and of the enhancement of the potential growth rate, the present paper suggests that the best path of action for the Chinese Government is not to stimulate growth through demand‐side factors but to increase the potential growth rate through reforms in certain key areas.     

关于日本经济长期停滞理论与政策的思考

泡沫危机以后,日本试图通过凯恩斯经济政策和结构改革的交替运用来恢复经济增长。20世纪90年代前期,凯恩斯经济政策的运用取得了短期效果。由于供给结构的变化,这一政策并没有使日本经济真正摆脱危机的困境。90年代后期,日本开始改为实施结构改革来提高其潜在增长率。由于总需求的持续减少,日本经济开始由短期衰退转为长期停滞。本文认为,泡沫危机后日本资产价格的持续下跌,导致各经济主体出现大量的不良资产,抵消了以上两大政策的经济效应。其中,商业银行对不良债权处理的拖延造成供给结构效率下降、企业投资和个人消费持续减少,使日本经济的停滞趋于长期化。     

Why Has China's Current Account Balance Converged after the Global Financial Crisis?

China's current account surplus declined significantly from its peak of nearly 10 percent of GDP in 2007 to less than 1 percent in 2018. The new pattern offered fresh evidence for our understanding of China's current account dynamics. In this paper, we used flow of funds data to gauge its underlying driving forces. Specifically, by employing index decomposition analysis, we decomposed the current account from the perspective of savings and investment into three sectors: the household, corporate, and government sectors. We found that the decline in China's current account ratio was first driven by cyclical factors, i.e. weak corporate saving growth induced by the economic slump in 2009 as well as the following massive corporate investment bolstered by the government stimulus plan. However, such cyclical factors quickly subsided, and the subsequent current account balance reduction was later supported by structural factors, i.e. household savings declined enduringly and the Chinese government switched to a more expansionary fiscal policy. There are three possible explanations for the structural movement: reduced precautionary saving due to higher social security coverage ratio, lower corporate profits as a result of economic slowdown, and a twin deficit due to the government's more relaxed fiscal stance. The new facts, however, were not consistent with other current account theories focusing on long‐term aspects of the saving–investment account puzzle, especially those relating to China's special demographic characteristics.     

Economic policy uncertainty and household consumption: Evidence from Chinese households

We find that households reduce their consumption in response to higher economic policy uncertainty (EPU). Compared with lower income households, high income group is more severely affected which can be explained by the portfolio choice of illiquid asset and liquid asset. In addition, the uncertainty effect is more pronounced among older, wealthier, well-educated and urban households. The impact of EPU on household consumption is also persistent. Holding more liquid asset and commercial insurance represent important channels in mitigating the negative effect of EPU on household consumption.     

Determinants of the 1991–1993 Japanese recession: Evidence from a structural model of the Japanese economy

The objectives of this paper are to determine the extent to which various factors contributed to the most recent recession in Japan and to assess whether the recent behavior of the Japanese economy differs from that in previous recessions. Toward that end, we develop a small, structural macroeconometric model of the Japanese economy and estimate it using data from 1971 Q1 to 1991 Q1, the period just prior to the recent downturn. The important results can be summarized as follows. First, the severity of the recent recession probably does not reflect structural economic changes. Second, the poor economic performance in 1991–1993 period was to some extent predictable, reflecting the unwinding of imbalances that developed during the preceding expansion. Finally, unpredictable movements in exchange rates, land prices, and stock prices occurring after 1991 played an important, but not predominant, part in accentuating the downturn, while unusually stimulative fiscal and monetary policies appear to have contributed substantially to GDP during the recession.     

战后日本公共投资存在的问题及改革方向

战后,日本通过实施一系列大规模的公共投资政策,经济得以迅速恢复,而且在之后长时间内保持高速增长,泡沫经济破灭前,其平均增长速度均超过其他发达资本主义国家。大规模的公共投资对日本经济发展的促进作用是不可忽视的。20世纪90年代后,随着泡沫经济的破灭,公共投资的效用下降,原有的公共投资制度受到了广泛质疑。回顾日本公共投资的历史,不难发现公共投资制度发展过程中的一些问题,从而在新世纪掀起了公共投资改革的高潮。     

Household Saving in China: The Keynesian Hypothesis,Life‐Cycle Hypothesis,and Precautionary Saving Theory

We test the explanatory powers of Keynesian theory, the life‐cycle hypothesis, and the precautionary saving theory on household saving in China, based on data from 1990 to 2009 from 31 provinces and autonomous regions. The results show that the precautionary saving motivation explains household saving better than Keynesian theory. The study results also highlight the impact of life expectancy on China's household saving.     

The role of fiscal policy in Japan: a quantitative study

This paper analyzes the role of fiscal policy in the recent slowdown in Japan. A dynamic general equilibrium model is developed in which fiscal policy can have both expansionary effects (through increasing returns) and contractionary effects (through the increase of public debt and tax burden). A version of the model is calibrated to the Japanese economy and is used to measure the importance of both these effects. We find that, under a wide range of parameters, net expansionary effects are quantitatively small, thus suggesting a limited role for fiscal stabilization     

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.     

中国会重蹈日本八十年代的覆辙吗

当前中国的经济形势与20世纪80年代后期的日本非常相似,本国货币持续地升值,资金大量涌入股市和房市,使股价房价大幅上涨。那么中国是否会重蹈日本的覆辙呢?比较分析表明中日有诸多不同的地方,中国处于高速增长期而日本经济处于平稳增长期,中国宏观政策稳健而日本宏观政策失当,日元大幅升值而人民币小幅缓慢升值,因此,日本泡沫破灭之后的长达十年之久的萧条不太可能在中国重演。     

Vertical foreign direct investment: Evidence from Japanese and U.S. multinational enterprises

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries has increased since the 1990s, but there is mixed evidence of vertical FDI associated with factor-seeking motives. This paper estimates the vertical motive of offshore production by multinational enterprises (MNEs) by exploiting past schooling characteristics as instruments for skilled-labor abundance in a host country. Using panel data on Japanese and U.S. MNEs in the 1990s, I find that skilled-labor abundance has a significantly negative impact on sales of manufacturing foreign affiliate only for Japanese MNEs. The results suggest that vertical FDI activity was more prevalent in Japanese MNEs than U.S. MNEs. A plausible explanation is that Japanese MNEs might be more vertically integrated with their offshore production than U.S. MNEs. A difference in foreign outsourcing activities could generate the observed deviation between Japanese and U.S. MNEs.     

日本经济为何输掉10年

日本经济在20世纪60年代创造了“奇迹”,80年代其国际经济地位达到峰,然而进入90年代以后却陷入了严重的萧条,发生了令人意想不到的巨大变化,这对全球经济,尤其是对中国经济产生了巨大的影响,深入研究日本经济的变化对中国经济发展具有深远的指导意义。     

Why do commercial banks hold government bonds? The case of Japan

We investigate the determinants of the demand for Japanese government bonds (JGBs) by commercial banks in Japan. In particular, by estimating portfolio equations for JGB demand and bank loans, based on a panel data set from the late 1990s to the 2000s, we rigorously test the popular assertion that the long stagnation of the real economy caused a shift in the portfolios of commercial banks from bank lending to JGBs. We find that the popular assertion is not empirically supported. Rather, the portfolio shift from loans to JGBs has been caused by a fall in the ratio of the loan rate to unit lending costs, or the bank’s price–cost margin for lending.     

Dark-side evidence on bank–firm relationship in Japan

Kang and Stulz [Kang, J.K., Stulz, R.M., 2000. Do banking shocks affect borrowing firm performance? An analysis of the Japanese experience. Journal of Business 73, 1–23] find that firms which are more dependent on banks perform especially poorly during the early 1990s when Japan suffered a great economic shock. Examining the same period, this study provides further evidence on the dark side of a close bank–firm relationship. The results reveal that main banks try to stabilize their earnings by asking their closely controlled clients to over-borrow and over-invest. More specifically, we find a higher main bank power (MBP) is associated with higher loan ratio, higher interest payments, higher investment expenditure but worse firm performance.     

Migration and household investment in rural China

In this paper, we demonstrate how household investment is affected by participation in migration in rural China. We both describe investment patterns across different regions of China and by households with different experiences with migration. We then describe a set of hypotheses about the relationship between migration and investment, and test the hypotheses using household data that we collected in rural China in 2000. We find that in areas with median incomes that are more than twice the poverty line, migration is associated with investment in housing and other consumer durables that is 20% higher than the average. We find no evidence of a link between migration and productive investment.     

The boom and the bust of the Japanese economy: A quantitative look at the period 1980–2000

In this paper we quantitatively investigate the boom and the bust of the Japanese economy during 1980–2000 using the business cycle accounting technique. This method helps us identify the distortion margins called “wedges” that played a significant role in accounting for the output fluctuations. Applying our model to Japan, we find that efficiency and investment wedges can almost wholly account for output increases of the 1980s. Labor wedges by themselves would have caused a recession beginning in late 1980s but was overwhelmed by the positive impact of efficiency and investment wedges. In the 1990s, efficiency, labor and investment wedges all contributed to the recession. We next extend the literature by conducting robustness tests to investigate the sensitivity of BCA results to small modifications in methodology.     

Understanding High Saving Rate in China

This paper presents a detailed analysis of the Chinese saving rate based on the flow of funds data. It finds that the most widely adopted view of precautionary saving, which is regarded as the top reason for maintaining a high saving rate in China, is misleading because this conclusion is drawn from the household survey data. In fact, the household saving rate has declined dramatically since the mid‐1990s, as is observed from the flow of funds framework. The high national saving rate is attributed to the increasing shares of both government and corporation disposable incomes. Insufficient consumption demand is caused by the persistent decrease in percentage share of household to national disposable income. Government‐ directed income redistribution urgently needs to be improved to accelerate consumption, which in turn would make the Chinese economy less investment‐led and help to reduce the current account surplus. (Edited by Zhinan Zhang)