Ito (2021) is a bit like Hamlet without the Prince. It reviews the first and second arrows of Abenomics (monetary and fiscal policy) and assesses them largely successful in managing aggregate demand. But the third arrow, structural reform, which was meant to raise the potential growth rate, remains off-stage, and is implicitly judged a failure. The paper amounts to “two cheers” for Abenomics.

To establish a baseline for making these evaluations, Ito compares Abe's second tenure as Prime Minister (Abe II) with previous governments (table 2). Economic growth appears to be slow under Abe II; however, Ito demonstrates that Abe II coincided with a period of significant shrinkage in the labor force. When the growth figures are adjusted for this effect, economic performance appears to be in line with previous governments. In essence the first and second arrows were being fired into a significant demographic headwind.

Monetary policy is judged successful: unconventional monetary policy ended deflation even if the economy never achieved the 2% target inflation rate. The paper observes that the eventual return to meaningfully positive real interest rates and the unwinding of the Bank of Japan's large balance sheet will be challenging, but so far, so good.

On fiscal policy, Japan has faced a conflict between long-run and short-run priorities: the long-run fiscal position is weak, but immediate needs may augur for fiscal stimulus. This dilemma is made more acute by a history of low productivity public investments driven by local political and campaign finance exigencies associated with the construction industry. The situation is further complicated by the desire to move away from direct personal and corporate income taxes, and toward indirect consumption taxes, for reasons of both efficiency and equity described in the paper. Ito goes into some detail on the government's hesitancy regarding introducing planned consumption tax increases, reflecting the basic long-run, short-run conundrum.

Ito interprets the second arrow as “flexible” – not “stimulative” – fiscal policy and demonstrates that fiscal policy indeed appears to have become more responsive to circumstances. However, that relatively benign judgment comes with two caveats, one mentioned in the paper, one not. What Ito does observe is that a ratchet effect appears to have developed, such that when expenditures are raised in response to a crisis, they do not fall when the crisis has passed, giving an upward bias to fiscal expenditure, and intensifying concern over long-run debt sustainability. How this is resolved in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis will be crucial to Japan's future.

Finally, Ito concludes that the reason that Abe II economic performance was not better, even on a labor force adjusted basis, is that the third arrow, structural reforms, remains in the quiver. In this regard a characteristic of Abe II has been the focus on discrete initiatives, such as the Government Pension Investment Fund reform, “womenomics,” or agricultural reform via trade deals, rather than more basic reforms to improve labor market flexibility and capital market efficiency which might generate more substantial improvements in productivity. An assessment of political feasibility presumably has informed the government's choice of tactics.

Given the scattershot approach, it is perhaps unsurprising that these reforms have not materially increased the potential growth rate. “Womenomics,” however, has been successful in boosting female labor force participation – ameliorating the shrinkage in the labor force which Ito identifies as a drag on the economy. Nagase (2018) ties this to public policy interventions that have not only increased labor market participation of young women with children, but specifically an increase of these women staying in permanent contract regular employment. And while the third arrow has included corporate governance reforms, the gains in women's participation has not manifested in corporate boardrooms and executive suites: Japan is an outlier among industrial countries, regularly ranking alongside countries such as Saudi Arabia and Oman as having the fewest female executives (Han & Noland, 2020). The lack of gender diversity in Japan appears to come at a cost: “Firms with more female outside directors exhibit higher performance. On average the market reacts positively to a firm's decision to bring a new female outside director on the board. Overall, the results show that female outside directors are beneficial to Japanese firms” (Tanaka, 2019).

My conclusion: two and a half cheers for Abenomics.

伊藤（2021）有点像没有王子的哈姆雷特。它回顾了安倍经济学（货币和财政政策）的第一支箭和第二支箭，并评估它们在管理总需求方面取得的成功。但第三支箭，即旨在提高潜在增长率的结构性改革，仍在舞台外，并被含蓄地判断为失败。这篇论文相当于安倍经济学的“两声欢呼”。

为了建立进行这些评估的基准，伊藤将安倍第二次担任首相（安倍二世）与前几届政府进行了比较（表 2）。安倍二世执政期间经济增长似乎放缓；然而，伊藤证明安倍二世恰逢劳动力显着萎缩的时期。当根据这种影响调整增长数据时，经济表现似乎与前几届政府一致。从本质上讲，第一支箭和第二支箭被射向了一个显着的人口逆风。

货币政策被判断为成功：即使经济从未达到 2% 的目标通胀率，非常规货币政策也结束了通货紧缩。该文件观察到，最终回归到有意义的正实际利率和日本央行庞大的资产负债表的平仓将具有挑战性，但到目前为止，一切都很好。

在财政政策方面，日本面临着长期和短期优先事项之间的冲突：长期财政状况疲软，但紧迫的需求可能预示着财政刺激。由于与建筑业相关的地方政治和竞选资金紧急情况，公共投资生产力低下的历史，使这种困境变得更加尖锐。出于本文所述的效率和公平的原因，希望从直接的个人和企业所得税转向间接消费税，使情况进一步复杂化。伊藤详细介绍了政府在引入计划性消费税增加方面的犹豫，反映了基本的长期和短期难题。

伊藤将第二个箭头解释为“灵活的”——而不是“刺激性的”——财政政策，并表明财政政策确实似乎对环境的反应更加灵敏。然而，这种相对良性的判断伴随着两个警告，一个在论文中提到，一个没有。伊藤确实观察到的是，棘轮效应似乎已经发展，即当为应对危机而增加支出时，当危机过去时支出不会下降，从而使财政支出向上倾斜，并加剧了对长期支出的担忧。运行债务可持续性。在 COVID-19 危机之后如何解决这一问题对日本的未来至关重要。

最后，伊藤得出结论，即使在劳动力调整的基础上，安倍二世的经济表现也没有更好的原因是第三支箭，结构性改革，仍在箭袋中。在这方面，安倍二世的一个特点是专注于离散举措，例如政府养老金投资基金改革、“女性经济学”或通过贸易协议进行的农业改革，而不是更基本的改革以提高劳动力市场灵活性和资本市场效率这可能会在生产力方面产生更实质性的提高。对政治可行性的评估大概为政府的策略选择提供了信息。

鉴于这种漫无目的的方法，这些改革并没有实质性地提高潜在增长率也许并不奇怪。然而，“女性经济学”在提高女性劳动力参与方面取得了成功——缓解了伊藤认为拖累经济的劳动力萎缩。长濑 ( 2018)) 将其与公共政策干预联系起来，这些干预不仅增加了有孩子的年轻女性的劳动力市场参与度，而且特别是增加了这些长期合同定期就业的女性。虽然第三支箭包括公司治理改革，但女性参与度的提高并没有体现在公司董事会和高管套房中：日本是工业国家中的一个例外，经常与沙特阿拉伯和阿曼等国家并列，成为女性高管人数最少的国家（韩与诺兰，  2020）。日本缺乏性别多样性似乎是有代价的：“拥有更多女性外部董事的公司表现出更高的绩效。平均而言，市场对公司在董事会中引入新的女性外部董事的决定反应积极。总体而言，结果表明女性外部董事对日本公司有利”（Tanaka，  2019）。

我的结论是：为安倍经济学欢呼两年半。