PM adviser Hamada: Japan should buy foreign bonds - Reuters

Koichi Hamada, an adviser to Japan's Prime Minister and emeritus professor of economics at Yale, suggested Japan buys foreign bonds in an interview with Reuters.

Key highlights:

• Bank of Japan (BOJ) should consider buying foreign bonds to encourage inflation.
• Current laws prohibit BOJ from purchasing foreign bonds for the purpose of influencing currency markets.
• Academic workaround allows bond-buying to spur economic growth.
• BOJ has dismissed option repeatedly, too difficult to convince G20 countries bond purchases are for economy-priming and not currency manipulation.
• Hamada has suggested this strategy in the past.