Haruhiko Kuroda: Central banking in a changing world

Opening remarks by Mr Haruhiko Kuroda, Governor of the Bank of Japan, at the 2018 BOJ-IMES Conference "Central Banking in a Changing World", hosted by the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, Tokyo, 30 May 2018.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Introduction

Good morning. I am honored to welcome distinguished guests from academia and central banks to the 24th International Conference hosted by the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies. On behalf of conference organizers, I thank all of you here who have kindly taken time out of your busy schedules to participate in this one-and-a-half-day conference in Tokyo.

The topic of this year's conference is "Central Banking in a Changing World." Over the past few years, our conferences focused on monetary policy issues, yielding important insights and suggestions for the conduct of monetary policy after the Global Financial Crisis. This year's conference expands its scope from monetary policy to "central banking," that is to say, central bank policies and operations on the whole. Behind this is the fact that global structural changes in recent years influence not only central bank policies such as monetary and prudential policies, but also central bank operations such as the issuance of currency and the operation of payment and settlement systems, which provide basis for the conduct of central bank policies.

As these changes span a wide range of areas, I think it is helpful to briefly outline recent changes in the global economic and financial environment, especially which are deemed important for central banks.