Japan Quietly Reflates, Buying Time for Reckoning With Debt
- Nominal GDP under Abe has finally surpassed the 1990s record
- Abenomics has for moment defeated demographics, with job gains
Pedestrians are reflected in an electronic stock board outside a securities firm in Tokyo, Japan.
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Hidden beneath the headlines about Japan’s continual failure to reach its inflation target is a quiet reflation of its economy.
It took almost two decades, but Japan finally notched a record for the size of its economy in 2016, one of the most significant signs yet that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s reflation policies have had an impact on underlying fundamentals.