摘要：Two years have passed since the Bank of Japan introduced quantitative and qualitative monetaryeasing (QQE) in April 2013. This article considers attempts to assess the effects of QQE on Japan'seconomic and financial developments during this period. The start of the transmission mechanism ofQQE is as follows: (1) inflation expectations will be raised through a strong and clear commitment to theprice stability target of 2 percent and large-scale monetary expansion to underpin the commitment; andconcurrently, (2) downward pressure will be put on the entire yield curve through the Bank's massivepurchases of Japanese government bonds (JGBs); thereby (3) decreasing real interest rates. On thatbasis, the assessment of QQE's effects was made in the following two stages: in the first stage, thedegree of the decline in real interest rates was gauged; and in the second stage, the extent to which thedecline in real interest rates affected economic activity and prices was assessed. The results of theassessment could be judged to be that (a) QQE lowered real interest rates by slightly less than 1percentage point and (b) the actual improvement in economic activity and prices was mostly in line withthe mechanism anticipated by QQE. Recently, however, the year-on-year rate of increase in theconsumer price index slowed, mainly due to the effects of the decline in crude oil prices. Looking ahead,due attention needs to be paid to how the decline in the actual inflation rate will affect inflationexpectation formation.
