Japan Institute for National Fundamentals

2025.04.23 (Wed)

【#1245】Consumption Tax Is Not Non-Tariff Barrier

April 21, 2025 　 Non-tariff barriers refer to practices and legal regulations and systems that limit the competitiveness of imported goods in ways other than tariffs. If tough quality and safety sta...

2025.01.23 (Thu)

【#1215】BOJ Should Not Rush to Raise Interest Rate

January 20, 2025 　 The Bank of Japan will hold its monetary policy meeting on January 23 and 24. The focus of attention is on whether the policy rate, or the overnight interbank call rate as the mai...

2024.09.11 (Wed)

【#1177】Objecting to Koizumi’s Labor Market Reform Initiative

September 9, 2024 　 Former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, who is considered one of the front-runners in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election, expressed his determinati...

2024.09.04 (Wed)

【#1176】Economic Policy Debate in LDP Presidential Election Campaigns

September 2, 2024 　 As the schedule for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election has been fixed, an outline of major candidates’ policies has loomed. This essay focuses on and com...

2024.06.19 (Wed)

【#1154】Economic Growth Should Be Top Priority in Fiscal Management

June 17, 2024 　 On June 11, the government released a draft Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform for 2024 that sets the direction of future economic and fiscal policies. The dra...

2024.05.30 (Thu)

【#1149】Japan Should Stand Firm against Chinese Ambassador’s Wild Words

May 27, 2024 　 After 31 Japanese National Diet members attended the inauguration ceremony of Taiwan’s new President Lai Chingte, Chinese Ambassador to Japan Wu Jianghao in a roundtable discussion at...

2024.03.27 (Wed)

【#1131】BOJ Should Maintain Strong Commitment to Monetary Easing

March 25, 2024 　 The Bank of Japan at its monetary policy meeting on March 19 decided to raise the uncollateralized overnight call rate (an interest rate on overnight interbank loans), which serves ...

2024.02.07 (Wed)

【#1116】Too Early to End Monetary Easing in Japan

February 5, 2024 　 The Bank of Japan has persistently continued with monetary easing in order to completely overcome deflation that has been stagnating Japan’s economy for a long time. Under its mon...

2024.01.24 (Wed)

【#1109】Was Japan’s Economy Overtaken by Germany?

January 22, 2024 　 In 2023, it became certain that Japan’s nominal GDP (gross domestic product) on a dollar basis was overtaken by Germany, dropping Japan to the fourth largest economy in the world....

2023.11.29 (Wed)

【#1095】Sound Public Finances Do Not Mean Balanced Budget

November 27, 2023 　 Article 4 (1) of Japan’s Public Finance Act, the basic law on national finances, provides for the balanced budget principle that denies dependence on government bonds, while exce...