Japans Big Bang And The Transformation Of Financial Markets

A first step in the 'big bang' markets was the deregulation of the foreign exchange market on April 1, 1998. This paper examines how the bid-ask spread and conditional volatility in the yen/dollar foreign exchange market changed around the time of the deregulation. Intra-day data are analyzed with the following results: (1) Holding constant the effects of volume and volatility, the deregulation was associated with a convergence of Japanese quoted spreads toward those of other banks. (2) Modeling the persistence in volatility reveals that deregulation lowered conditional volatility.

A first step in the 'big bang' markets was the deregulation of the foreign exchange market on April 1, 1998. This paper examines how the bid-ask spread and conditional volatility in the yen/dollar foreign exchange market changed around the time of the deregulation. Intra-day data are analyzed with the following results: (1) Holding constant the effects of volume and volatility, the deregulation was associated with a convergence of Japanese quoted spreads toward those of other banks. (2) Modeling the persistence in volatility reveals that deregulation lowered conditional volatility.

At the start of the twenty-first century, the Japanese financial system is undergoing a major transformation. This process is spurred by a sense of crisis. Dominated by large institutions, the Japanese banking system has suffered from serious problems with non-performing loans since the early 1990s, when the Japanese stock market and urban real estate market both crashed. Delays in responding to these twin asset bubbles, by both regulatory authorities and the banks themselves, made matters worse and led to a banking crisis in late 1997 and early 1998. Not anticipating this setback, in late 1996 the Japanese government inaugurated its Big Bang of comprehensive financial deregulation designed to complete the process of creating `free, fair, and open financial markets'. Beginning in late 1998 and early 1999 the government finally embarked on a major rehabilitation of the Japanese banking system, including making available some Yen 60 trillion (approximately USD 500 billion) of government funds to recapitalize fifteen major banks, adequately fund the deposit insurance program, and write off the bad loans of nationalized or bankrupted banks. One result of this reform process is that the Ministry of Finance (MOF), which dominated Japanese financial system policy for most of the post-war period, has been stripped of most of its former regulatory powers. The purpose of this book is to describe, analyze, and evaluate the process that is transforming the Japanese financial system. The chapters address various issues relating to the transition of the Japanese financial system from a bank-centered and relationship-based system to a competitive market-based system. Questions taken up include: Why did Japanese banks get into such serious trouble? Why has the MOF lost its immense power? How will the Big Bang's financial deregulation further change the Japanese financial system, including the huge government financial institutions and postal savings system? What are some of the broader implications of this transition? The book is divided into three parts: Part I considers the origins of Japan's banking crisis; Part II focuses on five particularly important areas of major actual and potential changes; Part III addresses the effects of the Big Bang, including its potential systemic externalities. Taken together, this book offers an unusually up-to-date, comprehensive and thorough appraisal and evaluation of the profound changes occurring in Japan's financial system.

Japan's economy stumbled in the 1990s, after four decades of rapid growth that transformed Japan into a wealthy country at the world's technological frontier. This volume explores the forces that will drive structural and institutional change in Japan over the next decade.

In 1996, the Japanese government introduced a policy package initiating massive deregulation and liberalization in the nation's financial sector, referred to as Japan's financial 'Big Bang.' This book argues that the emergence of the Big Bang Initiative poses numerous challenges to conventional interpretations of Japanese politics and represents a clear case of institutional change in Japanese finance. Whereas many observers stress continuity in Japanese politics, this book argues that the emergence in the 1990s of performance failures and scandals attributed to the bureaucracy, as well as the increase in the likelihood of a change in government in this period, led policymaking patterns surrounding the Big Bang to differ radically from those dominating public policymaking in the past. These developments led to change in the nature of the alliance between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Ministry of Finance (MOF), to a shift in priorities within the MOF, and to a heightened role for the public in policymaking. The result was that the MOF, long perceived as 'entrenched' and seeking to maximize tangible tokens of organizational power, became more than willing to launch the Big Bang, despite the fact that these reforms would strip the ministry of many of its regulatory tools and sever the ministry's close ties with the financial sector. The book also argues that these new developments prevented financial industry actors from forestalling these reforms, as they had done in the past with other reforms similarly threatening the viability of weaker firms. The findings reveal that not only politicians, but also bureaucrats and interest groups, have reasons to pursue public support to enhance their respective political influence. Consequently, well-organized groups do not always prevail over the unorganized public.