is not the definitive statement of the new paradigm, but he hopes to have established the foundation of an economics which, in contrast to what we have at the moment, has a legitimate claim to be viewed as scientific. learning to observe the world as it really is whether complexity economics will survive the assault that the practitioners of te may launch, and emerge as the paradigm shift we need remains to be seen. in the meantime there is much that economists can do to make ourselves and our discipline a little more useful. one thing we can do is pay close attention, especially to data. economists now have access to enormous amounts of data on countries across the world, from the imf, the world bank, the undp and other institutions that provide data online, much of it free of cost. we have regional comparative data from the ccmf, un - eclac and others. and we have a rich data mine on barbados, in the form of statistics compiled and published by the central bank of barbados over 35 years or more. we have data on every aspect of the economy, often at a quite disaggregated level, particularly for the financial sector. we have annual series, quarterly series, monthly series, even daily data series. yet you would never guess that this rich data mine exists, judging from the papers you see published in journals, which invariably use the same handful of variables for study after study. one of the great tragedies of the past few decades is the neglect of the huge and very complex structural macroeconomic models which were built in the 1960s and 1970s, in university research institutes and at central banks. these models were so interconnected that it was difficult to pinpoint what was causing what, and the variables and equations did not have nice statistical properties, so they were shut down on the orders of the high priests of econometric rigour. or if not shut down, they remained undeveloped and neglected. with a few exceptions, among them, thankfully, the forecasting model used by the central bank of barbados. although even that model has not received the attention it deserves, to develop its rich possibilities. my admonition to all of us is to maximize the use of data : use the highest frequency you can find, the longest series you can source, the most precise specification of variables. don ’ t let ’ s stay on the surface, confining ourselves to aggregates ; let ’ s drill down to the components, the sectors and subsectors

masaaki shirakawa : japan ’ s economy and monetary policy speech by mr masaaki shirakawa, governor of the bank of japan, at the kisaragi - kai meeting, tokyo, 4 november 2010. * * * introduction i am privileged to have an opportunity to speak before such a large audience. having said that, the timing of today ’ s speech has become somewhat uneasy for me. the policy board of the bank of japan has decided last week to bring forward the next monetary policy meeting to today and tomorrow to discuss and decide the principal terms and conditions for purchases of exchange - traded funds ( etfs ) and japan real estate investment trusts ( j - reits ) with a view to starting such purchases promptly. therefore, in my speech today, based on the outlook for economic activity and prices released last week, i will talk about the developments in the global economy, and then mainly about japan ’ s economic and price developments and the bank ’ s “ comprehensive monetary easing. ” while i make clear at the beginning that there will be no information that implies the decision to be made at tomorrow ’ s monetary policy meeting, i hope that my speech today will be of any use in enhancing your understanding on economies at home and abroad, as well as on the bank ’ s monetary policy. i. developments in the global economy the developments in the global economy since the failure of lehman brothers i will start with the developments in the global economy. the global economy plunged after the failure of lehman brothers in september 2008. behind that economic downturn were two factors. the first factor was a panicky contraction of economic and financial activity due to the financial crisis triggered by the failure of lehman brothers. that brought about acute effects on the economy. the second factor, which could be said as more fundamental, was the unwinding of various excesses that had been accumulated globally up to the mid - 2000s mainly in the united states and europe. that was a disposal process of excesses such as excess debt in the household sector, excess production capacity in firms, and impaired assets of financial institutions. namely, the process of repairing and adjusting balance sheets. during the repair and adjustment process, spending activity of each economic entity will be restrained. consequently, chronic downward pressure will be exerted on the economy for a protracted period. the global economy leveled out in the spring of 2009 and started to pick up, and that was mainly because the first - mentioned acute symptom settled. thanks to liquid