Japanese economy

Tan Princess

I've an interview next week and need some info on the japanese economy for it. Where should I look for this? Anything particular I should read up on?

Économiste Monétaire

You should probably read up on the banking collapse, the deflationary period (Japanese monetary policy in general for the last 20+ years). I'd guess they'd ask questions about the current climate. You could say that inflation is returning (I think it's 1.5%) and real interest rates are actually negative (I think there was a piece in the Economist last week about this) & talk about the consequences of that. Also, Japanese GDP didn't really increase from 2000 to 2005.

In regards to resources you could go to the IMF site for figures, take a scan through the wiki page (of course be careful of accuracy). Book wise, "The Japanese Economy" by David Flath seems popular, make sure you get the 2005 edition not the 2000 one. You'd probably find it in Hodges Figgis or Waterstones.

Those are just off the top of my head.

justfortherecor

Read Ito and Mishkin's working paper "Two decades of Japanese monetary policy and the deflation problem" to get a good overview of the BOJ policies over the last 25yrs and their effects on the Japanese economy. Should be available for free through a google search. I think you can download it from the NBER website.

I saw from the 'work & jobs' section that you are one of the candidates for a central bank job. If the interview is for this, I recommend reading up on the Quantitative Easing Policy of the BOJ from 2001-2006 as it was a major policy decision for a large Central Bank and still is the cause of debate for many economists/policymakers. The above paper gives a good overview.

Any other questions, feel free to ask/PM me. I wrote a couple of papers on BOJ policies in Uni and have a keen interest in the Japanese economy in general.

Best of luck with the interview!

Tan Princess

Cheers I did the CB interview too but I didn't get a phone call so i'm presuming I didn't get it this is yet another job

nesf

Don't know if it's available to non-subscribers but here's the article on Japanese inflation: http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11750467

Also read up about carry trading - I have some info on this if you want, drop me a pm.