Dealing with Domestic and International Economic Policy Issues as Bank of Japan Chief Economist

This chapter covers a wide range of the international activities the author carried out as Bank of Japan Chief Economist from 1990 to 1992, including his involvement in international debates on the implications of Japan’s high national saving trends for external payments imbalances and trade conflicts. It also reviews the sanguine assessments made by the Bank of Japan Research and Statistics Department about the Japanese economic outlook prior to the bursting of Japan’s bubble, and reveals that at its Board meetings to discuss them, the author expressed his personal views on the outlook for the Japanese economy which were more cautious than the Research and Statistics Department’s assessments. The chapter is supplemented by a note on “Japan Bashing”.