Introduction It is a great honor to be invited to the 2014 Autumn Annual Meeting of the Japan Society of Monetary Economics. Both the Bank of Japan and I have been deeply indebted to the Society over the years.
In the four and a half years since I took office as a Policy Board member of the Bank – how time flies – the global economy has faced strong headwinds caused mainly by the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, the fiscal cliff in the United States, and the Great East Japan Earthquake in Japan.