Kuroda comienza mandato con estímulo monetario agresivo

Genevieve Signoret & Patrick Signoret

El Consejo de Política Monetaria del Banco de Japón tomó medidas de estímulo monetario agresivas. Anunció lo que llama “relajamiento monetario cuantitativo y cualitativo”, que incluye duplicar en dos años: (1) la base monetaria; (2) el ritmo de compras de bonos soberanos japoneses (JGB) (detalle); (3) la duración media de los JGB; y (4) las compras de fondos negociables en bolsa (ETF). La meta para la magnitud de base monetaria reemplazará como herramienta principal de política monetaria a la meta en la tasa de interés para préstamos a un día sin garantía. NYT describe el anuncio de política monetaria como el arranque de relajamiento monetario (relativo a su PIB) más intenso del mundo. FT especifica que el nuevo ritmo de compras de JGB, 50 billones al año, es aproximadamente el doble que el ritmo actual.

La única decisión que no fue unánime fue la de prometer llevar a cabo la relajación monetaria hasta alcanzar el objetivo de inflación de 2%. Takahide Kiuchi, uno de los tres miembros del Consejo de Política Monetaria que habíamos identificado como opuestos a la intensificación del estímulo monetario (lo menos que se puede decir es que es cauteloso al respecto) , votó en contra.

NYT:

The U.S. Federal Reserve may buy more debt under its quantitative easing, but with the Japanese economy about one-third of the size of the United States, the scope of Kuroda’s “Quantitative and Qualitative Monetary Easing” is unmatched.

“This is an unprecedented degree of monetary easing,” a smiling Kuroda told a news conference after his first policy meeting at the helm of the central bank.

“We took all available steps we can think of. I’m confident that all necessary measures to achieve 2 percent inflation in two years were taken today,” he said.

One of those steps was to abandon interest rates as a target and become the only major central bank to primarily target the monetary base — the amount of cash it pumps out to the economy. It adopted a similar policy in 2001-2006, but not on this scale.

[…] The scope of Kuroda’s overhaul offered immediate comfort to Japanese markets, but contains major risks.

It could leave the central bank heavily exposed to government debt and potentially huge losses if it failed to stoke inflation and investors lost faith in its efforts to revive the economy, and it could trigger a currency war as other Asian exporters seek to remain competitive with a weaker yen..

FT resume las decisiones:

• An increase in the amount of Japanese government bond purchases so that total holdings rise by about Y50tn a year, about double the current pace of buying.

• An increase in the remaining maturity of those purchases, so that yields stay very low all along the curve.

• A new framework for those purchases. The main operating target switches from the overnight interest rate to Japan’s monetary base, which should roughly double by the end of 2014.

• More purchases of risk assets, and stocks in particular.

• The scrapping of the asset-purchasing programme, which was the centrepiece of the easing efforts of former governor Masaaki Shirakawa.

• A temporary suspension of the self-imposed rule that limited JGB holdings to the amount of banknotes in circulation. Discussions will continue on ways to ensure that the government keeps some discipline on spending.

Y explica el punto sobre el programa de compras de activos:

In a move that erases the centrepiece policy of Masaaki Shirakawa, the former central bank governor, the BoJ said it would scrap the asset-purchasing programme that was created in 2010 to buy shorter-term debt.

Now, all bond purchases will be consolidated in one operation, making the scale of the BoJ’s easing more transparent. The bank says it will discuss with the government ways to ensure that investors keep faith in state finances, having temporarily suspended its self-imposed rule limiting bond holdings to the amount of banknotes in circulation.