NewsNovo
The Bank of Japan raised its policy rate by 0.25 percentage points to 1.25 percent, the highest it has been since 1995. The central bank cited inflation risks as the basis for the decision.
Those two facts are doing different amounts of work, and which one you weight determines whether this reads as a meaningful shift or a careful step.
The case for treating this as a genuine inflection lies in the 1995 reference.
Japan's monetary policy spent most of the decades between then and now in territory that most central banks would not recognize as a conventional rate.
Keep reading