When a policy is applied for more than four years, and consistently fails to produce the intended result, it is tempting to declare it a failure. Critics of Japan’s economic stimulus declare exactly that. They are wrong. So-called Abenomics has not failed, and it should be sustained, not abandoned.
Critics of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic policy, which aims to combine monetary and fiscal stimulus with structural economic reforms, make a simple case. Abenomics began in the spring of 2013. It was supposed to revive growth and end two decades of on-and-off deflation.
Four years later, the Bank of Japan’s preferred measure of inflation is up by 0.1 per cent on a year ago. It follows, the critics say, that the medicine has not worked.