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The Japanese asset price bubble (バブル景気) was an economic bubble in Japan from 1986 to 1991, in which real estate and stock prices were greatly inflated. The bubble episode has been characterized by rapid acceleration of asset prices, overheated economic activity as well as uncontrolled money supply and credit expansion. More specifically, over-confidence and speculation over the asset and stock prices has been closely associated with excessive monetary easing policy at that time.

By August 1990, stock price has plummeted to half the peak by the time of fifth monetary tightening by Bank of Japan (also known as BOJ). The asset price began to fell by late 1991 and the asset price officially collapsed in the early 1992. Consequently, the bubble's subsequent collapse lasted for more than a decade with asset price plummeted resulting a huge accumulation of non-performing assets loan (NPL) and consequently difficulties to many financial institutions. Such Japanese asset price bubble contributed to what some refer to as the Lost Decade. Some economists, such as Paul Krugman, have argued that Japan fell into a liquidity trap during these years.

Background
Research has found out that the Japanese asset price was largely due to the lag in decision by BOJ to curb the issue much earlier. By end of August 1987, the BOJ has signalled a possible of tightening the monetary policy but decided to delay the decision in the view of economic uncertainty due to Black Monday (October 19, 1987) in the US.

Another alternative view of BOJ reluctance to tighten the monetary policy was due to uncertainty in Japanese economy, despite the economic went into expansion in the second half of 1987. Technically, the Japanese economy had just recovered from the brief (1985-1986) “endaka recession” (日本の円高不況). The “endaka recession” has been closely linked to the Plaza Accord (September 1985) – which led to the strong appreciation of Japanese yen. The strong appreciation of Japanese yen, however, eroded the Japanese economy since Japanese economy was led by exports and capital investment for export purpose.

The table below demonstrates the monthly average of the U.S. dollar/Yen spot rate (Yen per USD) at 17:00 JST.

In fact, in order to overcome “endaka” recession, aggressive fiscal policy was adopted mainly through expansion in the public investment, in order to stimulate the local economy. Simultaneously, BOJ has declared curbing Japanese Yen’s appreciation was the “national priority”. To prevent the Japanese Yen from appreciating further, the monetary policy maker had pursued aggressive monetary easing; slashed down the official discount rate to as low as 2.5% by February 1987. The move clearly failed to curb further appreciation of Japanese Yen (refer to the table above) as the Japanese Yen further appreciated from 200.05 ¥/U$ (first round monetary easing) to 128.25 ¥/U$ (end of 1987). The course only reversed by the spring 1988, when U$ began to strengthen against the Yen. Some researcher pointed out that "with exception of the first discount rate cut, subsequent four are heavily influenced by the US: second and the third cut was a joint announcement to cut the discount rate while the fourth and fifth was due to joint statement either Japan-US or G-7". The possibility of US influenced the strength of the Japanese yen should not be ruled out since the US was attempting to strengthen its current account deficit. Indeed almost all discount rate cut announced by the BOJ explicitly expressed the need to stabilize the foreign exchange rate, rather than to stabilize the domestic economy.

Later, BOJ hinted the possibility of tightening the policy due to inflationary pressure within its domestic economy. Despite leaving the official discount rate unchanged during the summer in 1987, the BOJ has expressed concern over excessive monetary easing, particularly after money supply and asset price rise sharply. Nonetheless, Black Monday in US triggered in delay for BOJ to switch into monetary tightening policy. BOJ officially increased the discount rate only by March 31, 1989.

Asset prices
The 1985-1991 asset prices bubble affected the entire nationwide, though the differences in the impact depends on three main factors: the size of the city itself, the geographical distance from Tokyo metropolis and Osaka , and historical importance of the city in the central government’s policy. Cities within prefectures closer to the Tokyo metropolis experienced far greater pressure in the asset prices compared to the cities located in prefectures further from Tokyo metropolis.

For definition purposes, Japan Real Estate Institute has classified Tokyo metropolis (including 23 special wards), Yokohama (Kanagawa), Nagoya (Aichi), Kyoto (Kyoto), Osaka (Osaka), and Kobe (Hyogo) as the six major cities. These six major cities experienced far greater asset prices inflation compared to other urban land nationwide. By 1991, commercial land prices rose 302.9% compared to 1985, while residential land and industrial land price jumped 180.5% and 162.0%, respectively, compared to 1985. Nationwide statistically shows that commercial land, residential land and industrial site land prices up by 80.9%, 51.1%, and 51.7%, respectively. The three main factors: size of the city, geographical location and the importance of the city under the central government’s policy can be illustrated as below.

By early 1980s, Tokyo was an important commercial city due to high concentration of international financial centre within Tokyo commercial districts. Demands for office continued to soar as more economic activities flooding the Tokyo commercial districts, resulting demand outstrip the supply. Government policies to solely concentrate its economic activities in Tokyo, and lack of diversification of economic activities to other local city are also partly to be blamed for the whole bubble crisis.

By 1985, lands within Tokyo commercial districts were scarce to fulfil the market demand. As a result, land prices in Tokyo commercial districts increased sharply within a year. Average per 1 sq. metre for lands in Tokyo commercial districts in 1984 was 1,333,000¥ (U$5,600 assuming in 1984 that 1 U$=238¥). In just within a year, average per 1 sq. metre for lands in Tokyo commercial districts was 1,894,000¥ (U$7,958 assuming in 1985 average 1 U$=238¥). This roughly translate to an approximately increase of 42%/sq. metre over just a year. By 1986, average per 1sq. metre for lands in Tokyo commercial districts has gone up to as high as 4,211,000¥ (U$25,065 assuming 1986 average 1 U$=168¥), a jump of 122% compared to 1985. Residential land jumped from average 297,000¥/ U$1,247 per 1 sq. metre (in 1985) to 431,000¥/ U$2,565 per 1 sq. metre (in 1986), an increase of 45%.

Moving southwards, Osaka (Osaka prefecture) also experienced a rapid growth in land prices especially in commercial district. Land prices in Osaka gained 35% as the land prices costs 1,159,000¥/1 sq. metre (1986) from an average 855,000¥/1 sq. metre (1985). Note here that Osaka uniquely had historical importance as commercial center in Japan ; hence lands in Osaka tend to be higher than most urban land in Japan.

By 1987, virtually lands within Tokyo metropolis were unable to cope up with demand. At this point, residential lands in Tokyo has shot up to 890,000¥/1 sq. metre (U$6,180 based on assumption 1U$ = 144¥) and commercial lands 6,493,000¥/1 sq. metre (U$ 45,090). Consequently, investors flocked to prefectures surrounding the Tokyo metropolis especially prefectures within the Greater Tokyo Area. Prefectures located in Southern Kanto are more favourable to investors compared to Northern Kanto. Hence lands in cities like Yokohama (Kanagawa prefecture), Saitama (Saitama prefecture), and Chiba (Chiba prefecture) tend to be more expansive than cities like Mito (Ibaraki prefecture), Utsunomiya (Tochigi prefecture) and Maebashi (Gumma prefecture). For instance, in 1987, commercial land prices in Yokohama (average 1 sq. metre) 1,279,000¥, Saitama 658,000¥ and Chiba 1,230,000¥. On the other hand, commercial land prices in Mito (average 1 sq. metre) 153,000¥, Utsunomiya 179,000¥ and Maebashi 135,000¥ in 1986. This means areas located closer to Tokyo metropolis tend to be more favourable compared to areas further from Tokyo metropolis.

Osaka continued to enjoy expansion in land prices especially in commercial area, as the land prices shot up to 2,025,000¥/1 sq. metre in 1987. Kyoto (Kyoto prefecture) and Kobe (Hyogo prefecture) also enjoyed a sharp increase in the land prices especially in commercial area gaining 31% and 23%, respectively. The effect of bubble in Osaka spread to as far as Nagoya (Aichi prefecture) which seen the commercial land prices gained as much as 28% compared to 1986.

The first possible bubble collapse sign appeared in 1988. By this time, non-prime land prices in Tokyo have reached the peak, though some areas in Tokyo wards started to fell albeit in relatively a smaller percentage. Prime land in Ginza district and areas in Central Tokyo continued to rise. Urban land in other cities, at this point, remained unaffected by the situation faced by Tokyo metropolis. In Osaka, for instance, the commercial land and residential land prices has gone up 37% and 41%, respectively.

By 1989, land prices in commercial districts in Tokyo began to stagnant, while land prices in residential areas in Tokyo actually dip 4.2% compared to 1988. Land prices in prime area in Tokyo also peaked around this time, as Ginza district being the most expansive district peaked at 30,000,000¥/1 sq. metre (U$218,978 based on assumption 1U$ = 137¥). Yokohama (Kanagawa prefecture) experienced a slowdown due to its location closer to Tokyo. Saitama (Saitama) and Chiba (Chiba), at this point, still chalked up healthy gain in land prices. All other urban cities in Japan had yet to see the impact of slowdown in Tokyo.

Between 1990 to mid 1991, most urban land had already reached the peak. The lag effect from the fall of Nikkei 225 pushed down the prices of urban land in most part of Japan by the end of 1991. The bubble collapse were officially declared in early 1992 – as land prices dropped the most in this period. Tokyo experienced the worst from the catastrophic in Japanese economic history. Land prices in residential area on average 1 sq/metre slid 19% while commercial land prices declined 13% compared to 1991. Overall land prices in residential area and commercial districts in Tokyo fell to the lowest level since 1987.

Stock Prices
In the 1980s, the direction of stock prices in Japan largely determined by the asset market (explicit reference to the land prices) in Japan. Judging on the monthly performance of Nikkei 225 in 1984, the index largely moves within 9900-11,600 range. As the land prices in Tokyo began to rise in 1985, the stock market also moved in the same direction. Indeed, the Nikkei 225 managed to surge past 13,000 by December 2, 1985.

The major surge was obvious by 1986, as the Nikkei 225 gained close to 45% within a year. The trend continued throughout 1987, touched as high as 26,029 by early August before dragged down by the NYSE Black Monday. The strong rally throughout 1988 and 1989 helped the Nikkei 225 to touch another new record high at 38,957.44 on December 29, 1989 before closing at 38,915.87. This translated to a gain of more than 224% since January 2, 1985. Some researchers concluded the unusual stock prices are likely due to the rise in land prices since the corporations’ net assets increases, hence pushing the stock prices upward. As the long as the asset prices continued to strengthen, investors would more likely to be attracted to speculate the stock prices.However, this also portrays the weaknesses of corporate governance in Japan itself.

On the downside, the monetary tightening policy in 1989 seems to have some effect on the stock prices. As lending costs increased drastically, coupled with a major slowdown in land prices in Tokyo, the stock market prices began to fall sharply in the early 1990. The Nikkei 225 slid to 23,849 (December 2, 1990) from the opening of 37,189 (January 4, 1990), which resulted Nikkei 225 lost more than 35% of its value within just a year. Consequently, the stock prices have officially collapsed by 1990. The downside trend continued even into 1991 as the Nikkei 225 slid down to as low as 22,687 in November 1, 1991.

Money supply and credit
Initially the growth of money supply (M2+CDs) decelerated in 1986 (the lowest growth rate was 8.3 percent in October–December 1986) which marked the end of brief “endaka recession”. The trend was gradually reversed as it accelerated afterwards and exceeded 10 percent in April-June 1987.

The growth of credit was more conspicuous than that of money supply. During the bubble period, bank are increasing borrowing activity and at the same time, also financing from capital markets substantially increased against the backdrop of the progress of financial deregulation and the increase in stock prices. As a result, the funding of the corporate and household sectors rapidly increased from around 1988 and recorded a rate of growth close to 14 percent on a year-on-year basis in 1989. Money supply continued to increase even after BOJ tightened its monetary policy and reached the peak in 1990, thereafter continuing to mark still double-digit growth until the fourth quarter. Money supply and credit dropped sharply by 1991, as bank lending began to drop due to a shift in bank lending attitude.

Monetary policy
The accelerating growth in term of Japanese asset price is closely associated with a significant drop in short-term interest rate notably between 1986 and 1987. The BoJ has slashed the official discount rate from 5.00% (January 30, 1986) to 2.50% (February 23, 1987). The official discount rate remained unchanged till May 30, 1989.

Summary of BOJ official discount rate

With the exception of the first discount rate cut, most of the discount cut was closely motivated by the international policy action to intervene in the foreign exchange market. Despite aggressive monetary easing by BOJ, the U$ slid as much as 35% from ¥237/U$ (September 1985) to ¥153/U$ (February 1987).

Consequently, the move by the BOJ has been heavily criticized since such move appear to influence the outcome of the yen, neglected much domestic factor. As a result of such move, the money growth has become out of control. In the beginning of 1985-1987 periods, money growth has been lingering around 8% before pushed up to more than 10% by the end of 1987. By early 1988, the growth has breached to about 12% per annum.

The Bank of Japan has also been criticized for their role in fuelling the asset bubble in Japan. The economic mix policy has been inappropriate due to apparent goal seems to be lending to bow to international standard to boast domestic growth and strengthening the Japanese yen. Economic analysis has been in favour of expansionary fiscal policy and tighter monetary policy rather than repeated expansionary rate cut while leaving the fiscal policy unchanged.

Thus, the movement of BOJ to appreciate the Japanese yen rather than stabilizing the asset price inflation and overheating means little can be done during the peak of the crisis. Despite the Bank of Japan stepped in to hike the interest rate by May 31, 1989, it seems to have little effect on the asset inflation. Indeed land prices continued to rise till early 1990s.

Distortions in the tax system
Unlike most countries, Japan has one of the most complicated taxation systems especially concerning the property tax. Since the provisions under the property tax are widely abused for speculation, such provisions have contributed to more costlier land especially within the urban area.

The inheritance tax in Japan was very high in Japan. It was reported to be 75% of the market price for over 500 million yen until 1988 and it is still 70% of the market price for over 2 billion yen. Yet the appraisal of land for tax purposes used to be about one-half of the market value and the debt was considered at face value during the bubble period. In order to evade inheritance tax, many wealthy individuals opt to borrow more money (since the interest rate was far lower), hence reduced much exposure to inheritance tax.

Furthermore, given that capital gains on the land are not taxed until the time of sales and interest rate payments can be deducted from taxable income for companies and individuals investing in asset (condominium and office), this has offered more incentive for wealthy individual and company to speculate the asset price. The Japanese property tax stipulated that the statutory standard property tax stands at 1.4%. However, in terms of effective property tax, it is much lower than the published statutory property tax.

As a thumb of rule, in the 1980s, local government imposed 0.1% of the market price land. Since the valuations did not rise in tandem with the actual rising market price, the effective property tax would regress over the time. As a result, for instance, in the Greater Tokyo area has dropped to 0.06% of the market price. As the land price escalates much quicker than the tax rate, most Japanese would consider lands as asset than for production purpose. The reason is simple: strong expectation that the land prices are likely to escalate, coupled with minimum property tax, it makes more sense to speculate the land price than to fully utilize the land for production purposes.

The land lease law
As provided under the Japan Civil Code, the rights of lessee and tenant are protected under the Land Lease Law. This law can be traced back during the World War II, whereby most house heads were conscripted for military duty leaving their families in danger to be thrown out from their leased land. For this reason, land leasehold contract is automatically renewed unless the landlord provides concrete reasoning to object upon the land lease contract lapsed.

In any cases, in the event of dispute between the lessee and tenant, court may summon for a hearing in order to ensure that the rent is “fair and reasonable”. Upon the rent is set by the court, tenant would pay according to the rent set by the court, which means landlords may not raise the rent more frequently according to the actual market price. Hence, the rent are actually kept “artificially low” and market fails to respond according to the rental price set by the market. For such reason, many landlords refused to rent out their land for such steep discount price, but rather leaving the land deserted to reap for huge capital gain should the land price increased sharply.

Changes in the bank behaviour
Traditionally, Japanese are well known to be a great deposit saver. However, the trend seems to reverse by late 1980s as more Japanese opt to shift the funding from the banks to the capital market – leading banks in a tight squeeze as the lending costs are more expansive with shrinking customer base.

In fact, the bank behaviour has gradually aggressive since 1983 (even before the monetary easing policy in Japan) after the ban on fund-raising in the securities market were lifted around 1980. However, major firms were not keen to utilize the bank as the source of funding. For this reason, banks were forced to aggressively promote loans to smaller firms backed by properties. Soon, especially around 1987-1988, banks were more even more aggressive to lend loans to individuals backed by properties. Evidently, even an ordinary salaryman can easily borrow up to 100 million yen for any purposes provided his house was used as [[collateral].

Consequently, this has adverse impact of the whole Japan asset bubble. Firstly, cheap and easily available loans reduced the funding costs for the purpose of speculation. . Secondly, stock rises, coupled by low interests rate, reduced the capital costs and aided financing capital market (e.g. convertible bonds, bonds with warrants etc). Thirdly, combination of rise in land and stock prices pushed up the value of assets held by corporate; in which effectively increased their sources of funding since such these increased the collateral value of the assets.

Asset price
The asset price burst seems to exert a great effect on the overall Japanese economy. By 1992, the urban land price nationwide declined 1.7% from the peak. However, the impact are worst for land in the six major cities as the average land prices (commercial, residential, and industrial) dropped 15.5% from its peak. Commercial, residential and industrial land prices dropped 15.2%, 17.9%, and 13.1%, respectively.

The entire asset prices crisis was far worst especially in large business districts of Tokyo. By 2004, prime "A" property in Tokyo's financial districts had slumped to less than 1 percent of its peak, and Tokyo's residential homes were less than a tenth of their peak, but still managed to be listed as the most expensive in the world until being surpassed in the late 2000s by Moscow and other cities. However, since 2012, Tokyo is once again, the world's most expensive city, followed by Osaka with Moscow as number 4. Tens of trillions of dollars worth were wiped out with the combined collapse of the Tokyo stock and real estate markets. Only in 2007 had property prices begun to rise; however, they began to fall in late 2008 due to the financial crisis.

Household/Corporate balance sheet
The entire crisis also badly affected the direct consumption and investment within Japan. As a result from a prolong decline in the asset prices, there was a sharp decline in the consumption propensity, in which resulted in long term deflation in Japan. The asset prices burst also badly affected the consumer confidence since a sharp dip in asset prices (land, housing and stock) has reduced the household real income.

At the same time, since the economy driven by its high rates of reinvestment, this crash hit particularly hard. This apparently obvious especially the Nikkei 225 at the Tokyo Stock Exchange plunged from the height of 38,915 at the end of December 1989 to 14,309 at the end of August 1992. By 11 March 2003, it plunged to the post-bubble low of 7,862 on March 11, 2003. As investments were increasingly directed out of the country, manufacturers were facing difficulties to uphold its competitive advantage since most manufacturing firms lost some degree of their technological edge. Consequently, Japanese products became less competitive overseas. The post-bubble crisis also had adverse impact on the corporate balance sheet. During the asset- bubble period, most Japanese corporate balance sheet was backed up assets held by the corporate. Hence, the asset prices may influence the corporate balance sheet. Owning to lacking of corporate governance within Japanese corporate, most Japanese corporate had an inclination to convince investors with its healthy balance sheet, since most investors believe that such prices are likely bullish. An important aspect from the bubble collapse was the deterioration in terms of balance sheet. It was important to note that since the prices of assets tumbled, increasing liabilities on long term basis projected a bad balance sheet to investors. Many Japanese corporate were facing huge difficulties to reduce the debt ratio – resulting reluctance from private sectors to increase investments.

Financial and banking sector
The easily obtainable credit that had helped create and engorge the real estate bubble continued to be a problem for several years to come, and as late as 1997, banks were still making loans that had a low probability of being repaid. Loan officers and investment staff had a hard time finding anything to invest in that would return a profit. They would sometimes resort to depositing their block of investment cash, as ordinary deposits, in a competing bank, which would bring howls of complaint from that bank's loan officers and investment staff. Correcting the credit problem became even more difficult as the government began to subsidize failing banks and businesses, creating many so-called "zombie businesses". Eventually a carry trade developed in which money was borrowed from Japan, invested for returns elsewhere and then the Japanese were paid back, with a nice profit for the trader.

The post bubble crisis also claims several victims such as Sanyo Securities Co., Hokkaido Takushoku Bank, and Yamaichi Securities Co. in November 1997. By October 1998, the failure of the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan as well as Nippon Credit Bank in December the same year worsened the financial system unrest, drastically deteriorating consumer and business sentiment and dealing a heavy blow to the real economy. To fuse the crisis, the government injected a total of 9.3 trillion yen in public funds into major banks in March 1998 and March 1999.

The lost decade
Beyond 1991, after the Japanese bubble's collapse (崩壊), which occurred gradually rather than catastrophically, is known as the lost decade (失われた十年) in Japan.