This will be a series of blog posts where I analysis the period ahead for Japan under the new LDP leadership of Ms Sanae Takaichi. The motivation is that on November 7, 2025, the research group I am working with at Kyoto University will be staging a major event at the Diet (Parliament) Building in…
Central banking
On September 19, 2025, the Bank of Japan issued its latest – Statement on Monetary Policy – where they announced that there would be no change in the overnight call rate (the policy rate). However, they also announced that they would begin selling off their holdings of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and Japan real estate investment…
Central banks around the world tightened interest rates starting late 2021 in some places and there was a systematic period of hikes over the next year or more despite the inflationary pressures mostly showing signs of abatement as a result of factors that were not sensitive to the rising interest rates. In Australia, the RBA…
I often get asked about cryptocurrency. And I immediately become bored. The sort of claims that people have made about this phenomenon, which is historically just another speculative asset, are over-the-top to say the least. There are two realities that seem to be ignored. First, we already have mainstream digital money and have had for…
The reason I ask that question is because I read in the UK Guardian article yesterday (published August 11, 2025) – As dark financial clouds gather, Labour has to heed its past: when it chooses austerity, it loses elections – that “Britain is in danger of going bankrupt. It may happen slowly or quickly, but…
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the latest – Consumer Price Index, Australia – for the June-quarter 2025 today (July 30, 2025). The quarterly data showed that the inflation rate rose by 0.7 points in the quarter but over the 12 months and on an annual basis fell from 2.4 per cent to 2.1…
Last week (July 15, 2025), the British Chancellor delivered the – Rachel Reeves Mansion House 2025 speech – which is an annual event where the Chancellor outlines the state of the economy and what the government is doing. Mansion House, London – is the official residence of London’s Lord Mayor and is located in the…
Once again the Reserve Bank of Australia has gone rogue. On Tuesday (July 8, 2025), it held its cash rate target (the interest rate that expresses its monetary policy stance) constant at 3.85 per cent despite all the indicators suggesting that it would cut that target rate. The financial markets are in uproar because they…
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the latest CPI data yesterday (June 26, 2025) – Monthly Consumer Price Index Indicator – for May 2025, which showed that the annual underlying inflation rate, which excludes volatile items continues to fall – from 2.4 per cent to 2.1 per cent. The trimmed mean rate (which the…
Since we began the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) project in the mid-1990s, many people have asserted (wrongly) that the analysis we developed only applies to the US because it is considered to be the reserve currency. That status, the story goes, means that it can run fiscal deficits with relative impunity because the rest of…