The effects of unconventional monetary policy on stock markets and household incomes in Japan

Karl-Friedrich Israel, Tim Florian Sepp and Nils Sonnenberg

No 177, Working Papers from University of Leipzig, Faculty of Economics and Management Science

Abstract: In this study, we investigate the impact of monetary policy on Japanese household incomes using the Family Income and Expenditure Survey. Our analysis focuses on the savings and income structure of households, and covers the period from Q1 2007 to Q2 2021. We find that households in the highest income brackets have a higher proportion of their savings invested in stocks, while middle and lower income households hold a greater share of their savings in bank deposits. Our hypothesis is that the Bank of Japan's monetary policies have boosted stock markets in particular, leading to disproportionate benefits for high-income households through capital gains and dividends. Using local projections, we first identify a positive, lasting cumulative effect of both conventional and unconventional monetary expansion on Japanese stock markets. We then examine how stock market performance impacts household incomes, and find that the effect is strongest for high-income households, decreases for middle-income households, and disappears for lower-income households. Our results suggest that monetary policy may have contributed to the persistent growth in income inequality in Japan, as measured by metrics such as the Gini coefficient and top-to-bottom income ratios.

Keywords: monetary policy; inequality; Japan; household income (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 E52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-cba, nep-fdg and nep-mon
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/268952/1/1837670447.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:leiwps:177

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Leipzig, Faculty of Economics and Management Science Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().