Japan elections: Shinzo Abe's win powers daring monetary experiment

Former BOJ board member Sayuri Shirai said Abe's win will make it harder for the BOJ to scale back its stimulus

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s solid election win green lights a continuation of the Bank of Japan’s massive economic stimulus, entrenching a divide with global peers who are either heading in the opposite direction or mulling moves to do so.

While growth in the world’s third-largest economy has picked up, inflation remains nowhere close to the BOJ’s two per cent target. Continued easing means Japan will remain a source of liquidity for the world economy and especially emerging markets in Asia that are vulnerable to rising interest rates, said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economics research at HSBC Holdings in Hong Kong.

“Globally,