TOKYO—Japan’s next leader will face a question many other countries are now grappling with because of the coronavirus pandemic: How much can central banks do to pull economies out of a deep malaise?
Shinzo Abe, who said Friday he would resign after nearly eight years in office because of illness, leaned heavily on the Bank of Japan’s aggressive monetary easing in his “Abenomics” plan to revive the economy. Corporate profits and the stock market surged, yet growth was generally sluggish, even before the pandemic.
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