西方经济学流派论文

Summarize the key message of an article called” Land of the Rising Price”:A burst of inflation has happened in Japan in 2008, which makes the price rise. A broker named Christopher Wood points out that it is definitely positive. But others don’t agree with the viewpoint. John Richards, who works in the Royal Bank of Scotland in Tokyo, claims that the recovery in Japan has depended on exports too much. However, the demand from Asia, America and Europe has slowed this year. The rising price causes to reduce companies’ profit margins, while customers’ purchasing power also decreases. Richard Jerram, who works in Macquarie Capital Securities in Tokyo, suggests that when the value of savings is changed by inflation, households are possible to transfer savings into other assets in order to get higher returns. But Mr. Wood argues that the bad inflation, which makes the various costs increase, is another type of gaiatsu. That will cause rapid and deep change in Japan according to the history. He strongly believes that the rapid and deep change will happen recently. However, that will not happen. One of important reason is that the interest rate can’t be increased by the central bank as quickly as the bank would like. Another reason is that if money remains cheap, corporate reform is impossible to take place. So the inflation is not good news for cause deflation in Japan:Deflation is a process of falling price, which is the opposite of inflation. Price levels are highly connected with the relationship between the supply and the demand. To understand and express the definition of deflation simply, there is assumption that we are on an isolated island and there are 10 same goods and ten $ bills that are able to buy them with. If everyone wants to get one of them, it is obvious that each good costs $. However, if some people don’t want to get it, the price in each good will decrease because sellers want to sell all of goods. So they have to decrease the price in order to encourage people who don’t want to buy any more buy the goods. This is one of types of deflation, which is caused by decreasing the demand of goods. (, ND)To express the theory more clearly, let’s see a diagram below. In this diagram, the horizon axis y represents total product (national income), while the straight axis represents price level. AD represents aggregate demand curve, while AS represents aggregate supply curve. When the aggregate demand curve drops from AD to AD’, the total product, which depends on the point of intersection between AD curve and AS curve, don’t increase, is still y’. But the price level decreases from P to P’. So this is deflation caused by decreasing the demand of in the isolated island, if the quantity of money drops to $, while the number of goods is 10, the price in each good will decreases to $. This is another type of deflation, which is caused by reducing the supply of money. By the way, the supply of money can also be dropped if someone holds half of money on the island and refuses to spend it on anything. (, ND)According to the line chart in the article called” Land of the Rising Price”, it is clear that the consumer price fluctuated at very low level during the last ten years. That means the purchasing power is low, which is a sign of deflation. The situation in the last ten years is caused by decreasing the demand of goods or decreasing the supply of deflation good for an economy?In fact, whether deflation is good or not depends on the cause of the deflation. If deflation is caused by increasing the goods supply, it will be good. For example, in the late 19th century, with the industrial revolution happening, the productivity of goods was increasing. So the supply of goods obviously went up. Therefore, the price level dropped. Decreasing the goods demand or increasing the goods supply has the same result. If, however, deflation is caused by reducing money supply, it will be bad. The economy contracted because of lack of liquidity. People may lose their jobs. Thus, banks don’t loan money because people have no ability to pay off it. Therefore, money supply will fall again, while more people may lose their jobs. (, ND)BOJ’s monetary policyMonetary policy is generally classified as an expansionary policy and a contractionary policy. A policy is referred to as contractionary if it decreases the supply of money or increases the interest rate. An expansionary policy raises the supply of money, or drops the interest from the line chart in the article called” Land of the Rising Price”, the gross interest income dropped quickly from 1994 to 2006. In other words, the interest rate in the 12 years decreased sharply. That means BOJ’s monetary policy was an expansionary policy. Therefore, the supply of money could be increased using this policy. That would activate the aggregate demand. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2008)Though the policy was on the correct track, I don’t think BOJ was successful in solving the deflation problem. One of important reason is that the time of reducing interest rate was more than 10 years, which was too long. That means BOJ did not find a suitable interest rate during the 12 years. Another important reason is that when a burst of inflation has happened in 2008, the aggregate demand is not activated fully. The inflation relies on Japan imports mostly, rather than increasing domestic demand. So the purpose of the policy has not achieved completely. The third reason is that the interest rate can’t be increased by BOJ as quickly as BOJ would like. Bad overseas and domestic economic situation prevent from increasing the interest rate. So generally, BOJ was not successful in solving the rate, exports and exchange rateThe interest rate has very strong effect on the exchange rate. As we all know, the interest rate level depends on the relationship between the demand and the supply in foreign exchange market. Foreign exchange is one type of financial assets. An investor chooses and holds it because it brings capital returns. Actually, the return of currency in each country is measured by the interest rate in each country’s financial market. If the interest rate of currency in one country rises, the return will also rise, attracting investors to buy the currency. If the interest rate drops, the return will decrease. Therefore, the attraction of the currency is low. BOJ has kept the interest rate low, which is the lowest of any G8 economy. That means the interest rate of Japanese Yen is lower than many other countries, which leads to increasing capital outflows, reducing capital inflows. Thus, investors who hold Japanese Yen will sell the currency, which will make the exchange rate exchange rate of Japanese Yen always leads to rising Japanese exports and reducing the imports. First, with the depreciation of Japanese Yen, price of domestic goods is lower than price of foreign goods. So the demand of domestic goods will increase, while the demand of foreign goods will decrease. It is good for Japanese exports and international reserve. Second, with the increase of the demand of domestic goods, the price level will go up, while the employment will rise, increasing the national income. The behavior of companies and consumersIn deflation period, the price in the market is falling. As a result, the company profits are reducing. So a company is trying its best to make the cost of production lower in order to remain competitive. One way to achieve the aim is to reduce the nominal wage. Therefore, people spend less money in purchasing so that they will show the sign of belt-tightening. Actually, the deflation lasted for more than 10 years. So when the inflation is happening, the price level is increased. Therefore, companies expected that the increased price level might solve the problem caused by deflation. So they have struggled to pay more wages and hire more workers so that the cost is increasing. But unfortunately, rising price level don’t solve the problem. Therefore, company profits are decreasing because the cost is increasing in the inflation period. In fact, in the short run, even though inflation is happening, people are not responding to that because they don’t know the price in future will be higher than current price, at least in the short run.