아베정권의 엔화 약세에 의한 무역수지 변화

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the impact of the Abe Administration’s weak yen strategy on trade through economic indices. This study focuses on the fact that Abe Administration implemented an easy money policy to get out of long-term economic stagnation, but the effect of weak yen was little to explore and discuss what caused that. In 2012, in the democratic regime, 1 dollar was exchanged at 80 yen, and in May 2013, in the Abe Administration, 1 dollar was exchanged at 100 yen, so yen was weak. Later, in June 2015, the yen weakened up to 125.85 yen. This is an effect of Abe Administration’s easy money policy, and since what Abe Administration expected was the recovery of the exports industry according to weak yen, so it is judged that there was some achievement. However, corporate performance was recovered by the weak yen, but there were problems, including the increase in the price of imports and no increase in the volume of export. The conclusions discussed using macroscopic data are as follows: First, in spite of the weak yen, the volume of exports did not increase. During the period of the weak yen in 2013, no big change in the volume of exports to the U.S., E.U., and China was observed, so the effect of the depreciation of Japanese yen was weak. During the period of the weak yen in 2015, the volume of exports to the U.S. decreased. However, exports to the E.U. increased a little, and later, despite the Japanese yen was strengthened, an increasing trend was observed. This means that the weak yen did not affect the volume of export. Second, the easy money policy promoted for economic recovery acted as a limitation in the creation of jobs. The volume of exports is very important since output would not increase unless the quantity increases, though the volume of exports increased by the weak yen. Since employment would not increase unless output increases, the effect of corporate profit on employment is limited though it increases. Meanwhile, unless nominal wages increase as the price of imported goods increases, real wages decline. It is judged that since the easy money policy to get out of long-term stagnation brought about weak yen and increased business performance, but there was a limitation in the increase of output, its impact on the Japanese economy was small overall.