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Journal Article
Measurement errors and quality-adjustment methodology: lessons from the Japanese CPI
This article examines the problems inherent in quality changes/new goods bias in the Consumer Price Index, using the Japanese case as an example. The author proposes a practical way to improve the accuracy of quality adjustments by introducing the hedonic approach to the conventional procedure.
Working Paper
Measurement errors in Japanese Consumer Price Index
In Japan, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is widely used as a measure of inflation or the cost of living. The CPI is constructed by using a fixed-weight Laspeyres formula. This formula is used mainly because of its ease of calculation and comprehension, thus limiting the total cost of constructing the statistics. However, such simplicity makes it difficult for the CPI to reflect dynamic changes in economic activity such as changes in consumers' behavior between goods in response to relative price fluctuation, the introduction of new goods, and the disappearance of old goods. As a result, ...
Working Paper
Asset price fluctuation and price indices
Since the late 1980s, the Japanese has experienced tremendous rise and fall of asset prices and large fluctuations of real economic activity, while general price level has remained relatively stable. Such developments raised a question of whether monetary policy should have targeted asset prices rather than conventional price indices. This paper focuses on how to make use of information inherent with asset price fluctuations in the monetary policy judgement. To this end, it investigates the possibility of incorporating asset price data into inflation measures by extending the conventional ...
Working Paper
Size and composition of the central bank balance sheet: revisiting Japan's experience of the quantitative easing policy
This paper re-examines Japan's experience of the quantitative easing policy in light of the policy responses against the current financial and economic crisis. Central banks use various unconventional measures in the range of financial assets being purchased and in the scale of such purchases. As the scope of such unconventional measures expands, it is often emphasized that the U.S. Federal Reserve policy reactions focus more on the asset side of its balance sheet, the so-called credit easing. By contrast, the Bank of Japan's quantitative easing policy from 2001 to 2006 set a target for the ...
Working Paper
Extracting market expectations from option prices: case studies in Japanese option markets
This paper focuses on the recently developing financial derivatives markets, and examines the usefulness of option prices as an information variable for monetary policy implementation. A set of option prices provides us with information on the whole probability distribution of the future values of underlying assets. Such information enables us to examine the development of market expectations. The paper estimates a time series of implied probability distributions from daily option prices on stock prices and long term government bond futures. The estimation is done for a sample of daily ...