The 2024 iteration of this country’s annual shuntō negotiations resulted in an average wage increase of over 5%, amidst rising fuel and raw material costs. For 10 points each:
[10e] Name this country, where Prime Minister Fumio Kishida encouraged companies to dramatically hike wages as part of his “new capitalism” initiative intended to combat deflation.
ANSWER: Japan [or Nihon-koku or Nippon-koku]
[10m] After the wage increase, the Bank of Japan set a positive value for this metric, in which banks pay to store reserves. In 2014, the European Central Bank broke this metric’s zero lower bound by repricing short-term incentives.
ANSWER: interest rates [accept deposit facility rates]
[10h] The Bank of Japan also ended a policy “controlling” this benchmark, wherein it bought Japanese bonds. Some economists claim that the ongoing inversion of this benchmark’s 2/10 variation in the USA is a recession warning.
ANSWER: yield curve [accept yield curve control]
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