The Japanese government has officially named Kazuo Ueda as the next central bank governor, turning to a respected monetary policy expert to help chart the future of the country’s decades-old ultra-loose policies.
Dubbed “Japan’s Ben Bernanke” by former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Ueda was a board member of the Bank of Japan from 1998 to 2005 and helped launch forward guidance when it launched its zero interest rate policy in the late 1990s.
As Federal Reserve Chairman from 2006 to 2014, Bernanke oversaw the central bank’s response to the 2008 financial crisis and introduced quantitative easing as a countermeasure.
Following reports of his nomination last week, Ueda told reporters that the central bank should continue current easing measures.
Kazuo Ueda has raised concerns about the side effects of BoJ’s yield curve control policies © Akio Kon/Bloomberg
But Ueda, a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo with a PhD in economics from MIT, has previously raised concerns about the side effects of the BoJ’s yield curve control policies, and experts expect him to gradually shift the economy towards normalizing interest rates.
On Tuesday, the government also appointed Ryozo Himino, former commissioner of the Financial Services Agency, and Shinichi Uchida, a BoJ executive who has played a central role in shaping Japan’s monetary policy, as deputy governors.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s nominations are subject to parliamentary approval, which he is expected to receive given the ruling coalition has a majority in both houses of parliament.
If Ueda is admitted, it would be the first time in post-war Japan that an academic has been appointed central bank governor, a role that has historically alternated between BoJ and Treasury officials.