Japan is Getting Interesting

(Cross post from Alpha.Sources) As regular readers of Alpha.Sources will know I have become quite fond of 'Japan-watching' as a discipline and as the pundits' commentaries and general economic data keep coming in I must say that it is getting exceedingly more interesting. Clearly, I have an impetus here and in essence I feel that I am on to something and I will keep poking and scratching

What's Funny About Consumption in Japan?

This question was being asked yesterday by Morgan Stanley GEF analyst Robert Alan Feldman (the post can be found towards the bottom of the page).Now as Claus Vistesen will undoubtedly hammer home at some stage Feldman does get some important parts of the picture which I have referred to in my last posts (and here):The data on consumption have certainly been a disappointment this year. Although

Consumption Decline in Japan

My friend Eddie Lee mailed me this morning about this news: Japan's retail sales unexpectedly fell for a second month, reducing the likelihood that consumer spending will accelerate and lead to an increase in the lowest interest rates among the world's seven biggest economies.Receipts at retailers fell a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent in October from a month earlier amid warmer-than-usual

The Fiscal Position In Japan

Glancing through the OECD Japan Economic Survey 2006 section on the Japan's current fiscal position, I couldn't help having some inconvenient thoughts.Now as explained here, societies with high median ages and large fiscal deficits (like Japan, Germany and Italy) really face a very special problem: they need to generate sufficient economic growth on a sustainable basis (and since with high median

Checking up on Japan

(A crosspost from Alpha.Sources.)Time is indeed a scare ressource and as such I have not been on the spot with some reporting on Japan as the third quarter came out a week ago. This is consequently to make amends on that but also to react on some interesting comments on Japan I have found in the week gone by. Let us begin with the economic data then and to that end Edward Hugh really has the all

The Japan Government Reduces Its Economic Forecast

In many ways this is significant. The Japanese government has just reduced its economic forecast for the first time since December 2004. So it seems that now all the signs are there that the longest economic expansion since the great recession began is now begining to come to an end. Foremost among the weak points is, of cousre, domestic consumption. Rather than repeating myself for the umpteemth

Japan Trade Surplus Narrows

This is hard to interpret, but it does seem that we have here more evidence of an investment slowdown in China (as well of course of a decrease of the rate of growth in US consumption), and Japan is one of the first to feel all of this. Now we have to watch for Germany. Note that many commentators are asking for domestic consumption to take the strain, and that doesn't sound at all realistic to

The Japanese Yen

One of the important features of the current Japanese export driven 'recovery' is the relatively low (indeed vis-a-vis the euro historically low) value of the yen. Surprisingly few commentators have seen fit to comment on this, or on the significance it might have for the debate about whether or not Japan is finally escaping the deflation problem. In the days when people still used to talk about

Japanese Third Quarter GDP

Well Japanese GDP maintained its momentum in the third quarter according to the initial data released today:Japan grew more strongly than expected in the third quarter with strong exports more than offsetting weak domestic consumption to produce annualized growth of 2 per cent......The economy, which grew a revised 1.5 per cent in the second-quarter on an annualized basis, has been expanding for

Right and Wrong on Japan?

This is a cross-post from my own blog Alpha.Sources in which I argue that any economic analysis of Japan must begin with the demographics. I am no fundamentalist but it seems very clear to me that any economic analyses on Japan which do not take the time to look at the structural effect of the demographics on the economy are not worth much I am sad to say.---We are now ready to another trip