In recent years, Japan's financial market has seen dramatic changes, in particular the explosive growth of currency trading and the increasing international role of the yen. This book gives a comprehensive overview of this activity. This work is the first non-Japanese language title to examine the prolific rise of Japan's foreign currency exchange market, its idiosyncracies, and its future role in the global economy. It is vital reading for economists and students of Japan-related subjects.

The role of the Japanese yen as an international currency is assessed. It is found that the determinants of international-currency use imply some increase for the yen’s use in international finance; however, the implications for the yen’s use in international trade are mixed. It is also shown that, despite Japan’s emergence as the world’s largest net creditor nation, Japan’s capital outflows have not significantly facilitated the yen’s internationalization. Data are presented showing that, although the yen’s use as an international currency has increased, it is still rather modest. Wider use of the yen as a regional currency in Asia has occurred, though a “yen-zone” does not appear to be emerging.

Originally published in 1986, after a period of global changes and financial crisis in the majority of industrialised countries, this book explores how Japan’s economy seemed to maintain its success. This study provides an overview of the Japanese case and the main schools of thought that arose from it by dealing with export-related issues such as reforms in foreign exchange and trade control laws and the internationalisation of Japan’s financial markets as well as more domestic issues such as employment and wages. This title will be of interest to students of Asian Studies and Economics.

Conquering the Fear of Freedom presents an analytical review of Japanese exchange rate policy from the end of World War II to the present. It examines how authorities, starting with the imposition of draconian controls over all international financial flows, moved toward eliminating virtually all state interference regulating foreign exchange transactions, including official intervention in the foreign exchange market. It describes how policy and institutional frameworks evolved, explains their domestic and international contexts, and assesses the impacts and consequences of policy actions. Following successful exchange rate-based stabilization in the early 1950s, Japan entered the world trading system with an overvalued currency, which helped perpetuate exchange and capital controls. As the culture of administrative control became ingrained, Japan took a decidedly gradualist approach to establishing current and capital account convertibility. The protracted capital account liberalization, coupled with slow domestic financial liberalization, created large swings in the yen's exchange rate when it was floated in the 1970s. Politicization by major trading partners of Japan's large bilateral trade surplus pressured authorities to subordinate domestic stability to external objectives. The ultimate outcome was costly: from the late 1980s, Japan successively experienced asset price inflation, a banking crisis, and economic stagnation. The book concludes by arguing that the shrinking trade surplus against the background of profound structural changes, the rise of China that has diminished the political intensity of any remaining bilateral economic issues, and the world's sympathy over two decades of deflation have given Japan, at least for now, the freedom to use macroeconomic policies for domestic purposes.