What to know about Kazuo Ueda, the man set to take over as the next BOJ governor? | Forexlive

Ueda is an academic/economist at Kyoritsu Women’s University but has also previously worked as a policymaker for the Japanese central bank. However, that was ages ago as he was previously on the board in 1998 to 2005. I must admit that it has been hard to dig up his policy leanings as there hasn’t been any major remarks by Ueda for the longest of time. But here are some things that might interest markets (h/t @ fidenzamacro).

He made a fair critique about Abenomics and BOJ bond purchases back in 2016 here, in which he said that:

“Japan needs specific plans to develop young talent and to effectively use both core and non-core workers. The Abe government must go beyond simply focusing on mitigating the pain of non-core workers and address the inefficiency of the core labour market..

Worse still, the BoJ seems to be reaching its limits. It now owns more than one-third of the Japanese government bond (JGB) market, and this is expected to increase to almost half by the end of 2017. The functioning of the market has deteriorated significantly. It is unclear how long the bank can keep buying JGBs at the current pace.”

There’s also an interview here on Ueda back in 2016 where he comments on inflation and interest rates but that was in a different economic era and considering the post-pandemic situation, I don’t think they are valid whatsoever.

Besides that, there isn’t much to really gather about his recent policy leanings. However, he did contribute to a recent panel discussion with other Japanese policymakers and economists, touching on wages and price developments amid the pandemic.

“Finally, moderator Ueda expressed the view that future developments in aggregate
demand were critical to achieving the price stability target of 2 percent. Moreover, he
noted that it was difficult to predict the pace at which wages might rise in the future, since this would depend on a variety of factors, such as developments in inflation expectations,
the extent to which inflation in the previous fiscal year came to be reflected in the results
of the annual spring labor-management wage negotiations, and structural changes in the
labor market. Summing up, he noted that the BOJ would need to continue to carefully
monitor wage and price developments.”