The writer is senior economist and head of Japan FX Strategy at JPMorganIt is little wonder that markets were scouring decade-old comments by Kazuo Ueda, the newly announced Bank of Japan governor. A relatively unknown academic outside of Japan who served on the central bank’s board between 1998 and 2005, Ueda’s nomination has prompted a rush to understand both the person and his profile.
But this risks missing the forest for the trees. The question to ask is not who, but rather why. Why has the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida nominated a comparative outsider to lead the BoJ, breaking with a long-held tradition of rotating between appointments from the Ministry of Finance and from within the ranks of the bank itself?
Perhaps others did not want the job. Or perhaps Ueda offers a shot at a relatively clean break for monetary policy. If the legacy of ultra-easy Abenomics looms large in Japan, dismantling an increasingly convoluted patchwork of policies will require someone who, at the very least, was not their architect.