This can allow for the interconnectedness of payment systems across jurisdictions, a key ingredient that has usually been relegated from the international agenda. Fostering such an aspect of public infrastructure would be aligned with addressing the relevant frictions in cross-border payments and, at the same time, with creating a robust baseline for new payment services and arrangements.
An economist from abroad who had believed that Japan’s economy was almost moribund changed his view after arriving in Japan and was said to have called the situation here a “golden recession.” As this story indicates, after the bursting of bubbles, Japan has in effect chosen the latter gradualist approach with respect to resource reallocation.