IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/asiaps/v3y2016i2p235-243.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fiscal Sustainability in Japan

Author

Listed:
  • Shiro Armstrong
  • Tatsuyoshi Okimoto

Abstract

Japanese government debt is at unprecedented levels with a gross debt to gross domestic product ratio of over 230 per cent and a net debt to gross domestic product ratio of 150 per cent. There are three big challenges to fiscal sustainability: the huge amount of government bonds outstanding; continued budget deficits; and the growing age-related spending. The debt is sustainable as long as the market as a whole believes it is. The path to fiscal consolidation requires increasing the tax rate, reducing spending, broadening the tax base and growing the economy out of trouble. The longer the delay before moving to a more sustainable consolidation path, the larger the risks and closer Japan moves towards a financial crisis. The policy goal is to keep government debt sustainable, not to repay it all. Just as Japan has done since the burst of the asset bubble in the early 1990s, there is every likelihood that the Japanese economy will muddle through.

Suggested Citation

  • Shiro Armstrong & Tatsuyoshi Okimoto, 2016. "Fiscal Sustainability in Japan," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(2), pages 235-243, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:asiaps:v:3:y:2016:i:2:p:235-243
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/app5.133
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Braun, R. Anton & Joines, Douglas H., 2015. "The implications of a graying Japan for government policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1-23.
    2. Alan J Auerbach, 2016. "Long-Term Fiscal Sustainability in Advanced Economies," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(2), pages 142-154, May.
    3. Selahattin İmrohoroğlu & Sagiri Kitao & Tomoaki Yamada, 2016. "Achieving Fiscal Balance In Japan," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57, pages 117-154, February.
    4. Takeo Hoshi & Takatoshi Ito, 2014. "Defying gravity: can Japanese sovereign debt continue to increase without a crisis? [Fiscal discipline and the cost of public debt service: some estimates for OECD countries]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 29(77), pages 5-44.
    5. Takashi Oshio & Oguro, 2013. "Fiscal Sustainability under an Aging Population in Japan: A Financial Market Perspective," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 9(4), pages 735-750, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Saito, Makoto & 齊藤, 誠, 2020. "Long-run mild deflation under fiscal unsustainability in Japan," Discussion Paper Series 703, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    2. Makoto Saito, 2021. "Public Bonds as Money Substitutes at Near-Zero Interest Rates: Disequilibrium Analysis of the Current and Future Japanese Economy," Advances in Japanese Business and Economics, in: Strong Money Demand in Financing War and Peace, pages 79-119, Springer.
    3. Magazzino, Cosimo & Brady, Gordon L. & Forte, Francesco, 2019. "A panel data analysis of the fiscal sustainability of G-7 countries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 20(C).
    4. María del Carmen Ramos-Herrera & Simón Sosvilla-Rivero, 2020. "Fiscal Sustainability in Aging Societies: Evidence from Euro Area Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-20, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Akira Okamoto, 2025. "The optimum quantity of debt for an aging Japan: welfare and demographic dynamics," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 76(1), pages 1-52, January.
    2. Nakajima, Tomoyuki & Takahashi, Shuhei, 2017. "The optimum quantity of debt for Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 17-26.
    3. MIyamoto Hiroaki & Yoshino Naoyuki, 2021. "Effectiveness of Fiscal Policy in Aging Economies," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 17(3), pages 1-18, November.
    4. Sagiri Kitao, 2018. "Policy Uncertainty and Cost of Delaying Reform: The Case of Aging Japan," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 27, pages 81-100, January.
    5. Choi, Yoonseok & Hirata, Hideaki & Kim, Sunghyun Henry, 2017. "Tax reform in Japan: Is it welfare-enhancing?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 12-22.
    6. Heer, Burkhard & Polito, Vito & Wickens, Michael R., 2020. "Population aging, social security and fiscal limits," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    7. D’Erasmo, P. & Mendoza, E.G. & Zhang, J., 2016. "What is a Sustainable Public Debt?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2493-2597, Elsevier.
    8. Selahattin Imrohoroglu, 2017. "Replacing Income Taxation with Consumption Taxation in Japan," CIGS Working Paper Series 17-008E, The Canon Institute for Global Studies.
    9. Hansen, Gary & İmrohoroğlu, Selahattin, 2018. "Replacing income taxation with consumption taxation in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 15-28.
    10. Sagiri KITAO & Minamo MIKOSHIBA, 2022. "Why Women Work the Way They Do in Japan: Roles of Fiscal Policies," Discussion papers 22016, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    11. Sagiri Kitao & Tomoaki Yamada, 2019. "Dimensions of inequality in Japan: Distributions of earnings, income and wealth between 1984 and 2014," CAMA Working Papers 2019-36, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    12. Magazzino, Cosimo & Brady, Gordon L. & Forte, Francesco, 2019. "A panel data analysis of the fiscal sustainability of G-7 countries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 20(C).
    13. Minamo MIKOSHIBA, 2025. "Universal Insurance with In-kind Transfers: The welfare effects of long-term care insurance in Japan," Discussion papers 25030, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    14. Kato, Ryuta Ray, 2022. "Population aging and labor mobility in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    15. Davoine, Thomas, 2022. "Cross-country differences in the long-run economic impacts of increased fertility," IHS Working Paper Series 38, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    16. Sagiri Kitao, 2017. "When do we Start? Pension reform in ageing Japan," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 68(1), pages 26-47, March.
    17. Kudrna, George & Tran, Chung & Woodland, Alan, 2022. "Sustainable and equitable pensions with means testing in aging economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    18. Selahattin İmrohoroğlu & Sagiri Kitao & Tomoaki Yamada, 2017. "Can Guest Workers Solve Japan'S Fiscal Problems?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(3), pages 1287-1307, July.
    19. İmrohoroğlu, Selahattin & Kitao, Sagiri & Yamada, Tomoaki, 2019. "Fiscal sustainability in Japan: What to tackle?," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    20. Kitao, Sagiri & Mikoshiba, Minamo, 2020. "Females, the elderly, and also males: Demographic aging and macroeconomy in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:asiaps:v:3:y:2016:i:2:p:235-243. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=2050-2680 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.