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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.

This paper analyzes the impact of monetary policy on household saving in Japan between 1993 and 2017. Using annual data from the Japan Panel Survey of Consumers it is shown that monetary expansion has contributed to a widening gap in households' net saving through an adverse effect on the volume of saving of non-academic households. In contrast, households with at least one academic tend to be able to compensate these adverse effects of monetary expansion or can even benefit from it. The paper documents how inequality in terms of the ability to build up wealth has increased in Japan over the past decades. The statistical analysis controls for household size as well as potential spatial effects in the transmission mechanism of monetary policy on household saving.

Since the 1980s inflationary pressures seem to materialize overproportionately outside of the sectors of consumer goods and services. We combine the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices with indices for asset prices, such as stocks and real estate, as well as the costs of public goods to develop alternative inflation measures in Germany since the introduction of the euro. Real economic growth as well as median wage developments are reexamined in light of the alternative inflation estimates. Both turn out to be negative over the past decade in the most pessimistic scenarios.

The evaluation of the costs and benefits of central banking is to a considerable degree dependent on the analytical approach pursued.Instrumentalist-positivist approaches, as discussed in the first part of the thesis, emphasize the importance of empirical-quantitativepredictions for the development of economic models. Within this line of research, there exists a strong emphasis on those consequences of central banking that have an immediate and readily measurable empirical counterpart in the observed economic environment.Hence, the beneficial short-term effects of expansionary monetary policy in terms of increased economic activity are studied in detail and are well understood by proponents of these approaches. Internal counterarguments are based on acknowledged ignorance about potentially destabilizing side-effects. The costs of central banking are essentially seen as welfare losses from decreasedeconomic activity or excessive price inflation as results of deviations from an optimal monetary policy path. The causal- realist approach, as studied in the second part, assigns a narrower role to quantitative-empirical tools of analysis. This line of research allows for a fruitful extension of the cost-benefit analysis to more abstract notions such as systemic risk and moral hazard that can be analyzed qualitatively. It is argued that modern central banking is a contributing factor to both. Moreover, business cycles and wealth redistribution from bottom to top as important effects of credit expansion are analyzed. An alternative explanation of stagflation based on the process of political interventionism in response to unintended consequences of monetary policy is proposed.; L'évaluation des coûts et des avantages du système de banque centrale dépend fondamentalement de l'approche analytique adoptée. Les approches instrumentalistes et positivistes, discutées dans la première partie de cette thèse, se concentrent principalement sur l'importance des prédictions empiriques quantitatives. Ces approches tendent à mettre l'accent sur les conséquences immédiates et facilement mesurables. Les effets bénéfiques de court-terme des politiques monétaires expansionnistes sont ainsi étudiés en détail par les partisans de ces approches. Les critiques internes de ces dernières sont basées sur la reconnue ignorance des potentiels effets secondaires déstabilisateurs. Les coûts engendrés par les banques centrales sont vus principalement comme une perte de bien être due à une activité économique diminuée où une inflation des prix trop élevée résultant d'une déviation vis-à-vis de la politique monétaire optimale. L'approche causale-réaliste, étudiée dans la deuxième partie, donne un rôle plus restreint à la méthode empirique quantitative. Cette ligne de recherche permet une extension fructueuse de l'analyse coûts bénéfices à des notions plus abstraites qui peuvent être étudiées qualitativement tels le risque systémique et l'aléa moral. Cette étude défend que le régime moderne de banque centrale a alimenté le développement de ces deux phénomènes. Nous analysons comment la récurrence du cycle économique et la redistribution de la richesse au profit des plus aisés sont des effets importants de l'expansion du crédit. Une explication alternative de la stagflation basée sur le processus de l'intervention politique en réponse à ces conséquences inattendues est proposée.

The evaluation of the costs and benefits of central banking is to a considerable degree dependent on the analytical approach pursued.Instrumentalist-positivist approaches, as discussed in the first part of the thesis, emphasize the importance of empirical-quantitativepredictions for the development of economic models. Within this line of research, there exists a strong emphasis on those consequences of central banking that have an immediate and readily measurable empirical counterpart in the observed economic environment.Hence, the beneficial short-term effects of expansionary monetary policy in terms of increased economic activity are studied in detail and are well understood by proponents of these approaches. Internal counterarguments are based on acknowledged ignorance about potentially destabilizing side-effects. The costs of central banking are essentially seen as welfare losses from decreasedeconomic activity or excessive price inflation as results of deviations from an optimal monetary policy path. The causal- realist approach, as studied in the second part, assigns a narrower role to quantitative-empirical tools of analysis. This line of research allows for a fruitful extension of the cost-benefit analysis to more abstract notions such as systemic risk and moral hazard that can be analyzed qualitatively. It is argued that modern central banking is a contributing factor to both. Moreover, business cycles and wealth redistribution from bottom to top as important effects of credit expansion are analyzed. An alternative explanation of stagflation based on the process of political interventionism in response to unintended consequences of monetary policy is proposed.; L'évaluation des coûts et des avantages du système de banque centrale dépend fondamentalement de l'approche analytique adoptée. Les approches instrumentalistes et positivistes, discutées dans la première partie de cette thèse, se concentrent principalement sur l'importance des prédictions empiriques quantitatives. Ces approches tendent à mettre l'accent sur les conséquences immédiates et facilement mesurables. Les effets bénéfiques de court-terme des politiques monétaires expansionnistes sont ainsi étudiés en détail par les partisans de ces approches. Les critiques internes de ces dernières sont basées sur la reconnue ignorance des potentiels effets secondaires déstabilisateurs. Les coûts engendrés par les banques centrales sont vus principalement comme une perte de bien être due à une activité économique diminuée où une inflation des prix trop élevée résultant d'une déviation vis-à-vis de la politique monétaire optimale. L'approche causale-réaliste, étudiée dans la deuxième partie, donne un rôle plus restreint à la méthode empirique quantitative. Cette ligne de recherche permet une extension fructueuse de l'analyse coûts bénéfices à des notions plus abstraites qui peuvent être étudiées qualitativement tels le risque systémique et l'aléa moral. Cette étude défend que le régime moderne de banque centrale a alimenté le développement de ces deux phénomènes. Nous analysons comment la récurrence du cycle économique et la redistribution de la richesse au profit des plus aisés sont des effets importants de l'expansion du crédit. Une explication alternative de la stagflation basée sur le processus de l'intervention politique en réponse à ces conséquences inattendues est proposée.