Masaaki Shirakawa, Governor of the Bank of Japan
Masaaki Shirakawa (born September 27, 1949) is a Japanese economist, central banker and the 30th Governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ). He is also a Director and Vice-Chairman of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
Shirakawa graduated from the University of Tokyo with an economics degree and received his master's degree from the University of Chicago in 1972. He returned to the BOJ in 2008.
After taking the helm in 2008, Shirakawa led the implementation of unconventional policy steps, including corporate debt buying, during the global financial crisis as Japan emerged from recession. He also managed to keep Japan's benchmark interest rate at rock-bottom 0.1%.
Masaaki Shirakawa ranks 6th on Newsweek's 2009 list of the world's most powerful along with Ben Bernanke (4th) and Jean-Claude Trichet (5th) to form what Newsweek termed the "Economic Triumvirate".
Why Do You Care?
Japan has suffered from a deflationary economy for two decades. Shirakawa believes it will take more than just changing monetary policy to cure Japan's monetary ills.
He believes that the fundamental cause of deflation is the protracted downward trend in Japan’s underlying GDP growth, caused both by the decrease in the number of workers and declining productivity growth.
Monetary easing was important to ease deflationary pressures but by itself was not enough. He believes that Japan's businesses need to bring more old people and women into jobs to counter the decline in the working-age population.
Shirakawa's critics say that Japan's business could capture more of the world's market if the BOJ did more to cheapen the yen. However, Shirakawa professes that the strength of the yen is not currently a major threat to Japan's economy and has helped offset rising import costs.
"At this moment, it is not working as an additional risk factor," Masaaki Shirakawa told The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires when asked whether he felt the yen's current level was a concern.
