Uploaded July 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Up until the nineties over in Japan, there wasn't really much in the way of a precedent for central banking aggressiveness on the one hand (the Bank of Japan's actions were considered quite unprecedented and, well, unorthodox back in the day) but on the other hand, a chronic unwillingness of the average individual and business to borrow money.
Fast-forward to the Great Recession and the exact same thing happened in the European Union as well as United States, with central banks more than willing to flood the market with liquidity but the private sector anything but willing to borrow accordingly.
Baffled US and EU policy makers, however, were on the receiving end of an interesting perspective from Japanese economists such as Richard Koo, who ended up understanding what was happening and even popularized a name for the phenomenon: balance sheet recessions.
As Richard Koo explained, balance sheet recessions actually revolved around the excessively debt-burdened private sector doing the proverbial right thing: noticing that existing debt exceeded asset valuations and therefore deciding to save so as to gradually pay down said debt in order to eventually get back on the right track.
But in true "Paradox of Thrift" fashion, as explained in this video and as illustrated by the balance sheet recession concept... in today's world, we have a bit of a problem when everyone does the right thing :)
Up until the nineties over in Japan, there wasn't really much in the way of a precedent for central banking aggressiveness on the one hand (the Bank of Japan's actions were considered quite unprecedented and, well, unorthodox back in the day) but on the other hand, a chronic unwillingness of the average individual and business to borrow money.
Fast-forward to the Great Recession and the exact same thing happened in the European Union as well as United States, with central banks more than willing to flood the market with liquidity but the private sector anything but willing to borrow accordingly.
Baffled US and EU policy makers, however, were on the receiving end of an interesting perspective from Japanese economists such as Richard Koo, who ended up understanding what was happening and even popularized a name for the phenomenon: balance sheet recessions.
As Richard Koo explained, balance sheet recessions actually revolved around the excessively debt-burdened private sector doing the proverbial right thing: noticing that existing debt exceeded asset valuations and therefore deciding to save so as to gradually pay down said debt in order to eventually get back on the right track.
But in true "Paradox of Thrift" fashion, as explained in this video and as illustrated by the balance sheet recession concept... in today's world, we have a bit of a problem when everyone does the right thing :)
