The Bank of Japan (BoJ) announced a seismic change in direction on March 19, hiking interest rates for the first time in 17 years.
The move represents an unwinding of an ultra-loose — and maverick -- policy aimed at putting Japan’s “lost decades” of stagnation and deflation behind it.
The last time the BoJ raised interest rates was in 2007, but its war against deflation began in earnest in 2013 under then-prime minister Shinzo Abe.
Photo: Reuters 照片：路透
“Abenomics” combined generous government spending and central bank monetary easing.
The BoJ spent vast amounts on bonds and other assets to pump liquidity into the system, targeting inflation of 2 percent that policymakers hoped would fuel growth.
The negative interest rate of -0.1 percent — hiked to between zero and 0.1 percent on March 19 — had been in place since 2016, effectively charging banks to keep their money at the Bank of Japan.
Photo: Reuters 照片：路透
The hope was that banks would loan out their capital instead, boosting economic activity.
Negative interest rate
Brought in after the late 2000s global recession and debt crisis, negative rates turned money orthodoxy on its head by charging banks to park deposits with their central bank rather than paying them interest for doing so.
Photo: Bloomberg 照片：彭博社
The aim was to encourage enough bank lending to kick-start growth in moribund post-crisis economies and ward off the threat of deflation. Most policymakers now conclude they didn’t work as well as planned and that, in any case, things have moved on.
“The days of ultra-low rates are over,” Agustin Carstens, general manager of the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements, said last week in a wide-ranging policy speech.
“Inflation will partly depend on factors that are not under central banks’ control,” he said, citing rising trade tensions, ageing populations and climate change among global factors that could keep prices and thus borrowing costs higher.
In the early 2010s, the world’s big three central banks the BOJ, European Central Bank and US Federal Reserve all cut rates to rock-bottom.
The Fed went no further, partly because its policymakers doubted US law would permit a negative rates policy.
The others, fearful that deflation, which prompts consumers to defer purchases so as to secure lower prices later might trap their economies in recession, decided to go below zero.
The Swiss National Bank, Swedish Riksbank and Denmark’s Nationalbank did likewise, prompting accusations from commercial bank chiefs that central banks were undermining the banking sector’s business model.
(AFP and Reuters)
日本央行3月19日宣布重大轉向，17年來首次升息。
此舉代表日本不再堅守超寬鬆且特立獨行的政策，該政策旨在擺脫日本「失落的數十年」的停滯與通貨緊縮。
日本央行上次升息是在2007年，而在2013年，在時任首相安倍晉三領導下，日本央行正式採取行動對抗通貨緊縮。
「安倍經濟學」結合了慷慨的政府支出與央行的貨幣寬鬆政策。
日本央行在債券和其他資產上投入了大量資金，向金融體系注入流動性，目標通膨率為2%，政策制定者希望以此推動經濟成長。
自2016年以來一直實施-0.1%的負利率（3月19日升至零至0.1%之間），實際上是向銀行收取將資金存放在日本央行的費用。
這是希望銀行能夠借出資本，進而促進經濟活動。
負利率政策
負利率是在經歷了2000年代末全球經濟衰退與債務危機後所實施，銀行在中央銀行存放款必須支付費用，而非向央行收取利息。這徹底顛覆了貨幣的正統觀念。
其目的是鼓勵銀行提供足夠的貸款，讓危機後陷入困境的經濟體啟動成長，並抵禦通貨緊縮的威脅。大多數政策制定者現在得出的結論是，其成效不如預期，且無論如何，現已時過境遷。
總部位於瑞士巴塞爾的國際清算銀行總經理奧古斯汀．卡斯滕斯上週在一次牽涉層面廣泛的政策演說中表示：「超低利率的時代已經結束」。
他表示：「通膨將部分取決於央行無法控制的因素」。他指出，貿易緊張局勢加劇、人口老化和氣候變遷等全球因素可能導致物價上漲，進而導致借貸成本上漲。
2010年代初，世界三大央行—日本央行、歐洲央行及美國聯邦準備銀行—均將利率降到最低水準。
聯準會並未採取進一步行動，部分原因是其政策制定者懷疑美國法律是否會允許負利率政策。
其他國家則擔心通貨緊縮（通貨緊縮會促使消費者延遲購買，以便稍後獲得更低的價格）可能使本國經濟陷入衰退，因此決定將利率降至零以下。
瑞士國家銀行、瑞典央行及丹麥國家銀行也採取了同樣的做法，引起商業銀行行長的指責，表示央行正在破壞銀行業的商業模式。
（台北時報林俐凱編譯）
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