出版社：Bank of Japan, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies
摘要：Good morning. I am very pleased to have a lot of participants from central banks, international organizations, and academia in this year’s annual BOJ-IMES Conference. On behalf of my colleagues at the Bank of Japan, I am privileged to welcome you all here in Tokyo. The theme of this year’s conference is “Demographic Changes and Macroeconomic Performance.” On the theme, I am sure that Japan is the most notable case that provides a basis for discussion. Japan’s population and the working-age population—that is, the population aged between 15 and 64 years—came to decline after their peak-years in 2007 and in 1995 respectively. The share of the population aged 65 years or older rose rapidly to 23 percent in 2010 from 12 percent in 1990 (Figure 1). In the meantime, Japan’s economic growth gradually slowed during the past two decades mainly for two reasons. In the former half of the period, the Japanese economy was hobbled by the crippling effect of the burst of the bubble. In the latter half, the rapid population aging hampered the Japanese economy through a variety of channels. In an attempt to illustrate that, I frequently rely on the cross-country comparison of growth rates including Japan. Among G-7 countries, the Japanese GDP growth rate per working-age population—an indicator least affected by demographic changes in the short run—was the highest. By contrast, the Japanese per capita GDP growth rate was almost the same as the average, and the Japanese GDP growth rate, which is subject to the decreases in the total population, was below average (Figure 2). Neoclassical growth theories normally do not distinguish the overall population from the working-age population due to analytical simplicity. However, without taking into account the distinction between the two variables explicitly, the very challenges that Japan is currently faced with will be outside the scope of analysis.
