Abstract. This paper analyzes the effect of Bank of Japan’s implementation of negative interest rate policy on various macroeconomic indicators – the Nikkei Stock, unemployment rate, foreign exchange rate, gross domestic product (GDP), and inflation rate – in a pre-and-post analysis. The implementation of negative interest rates was in response to conventional monetary policy having little to no effect after the financial crisis of 2008. The Bank of Japan was not the first central bank to implement negative interest rates; however, it is only one of six central banks to do so. For this reason, literature in unconventional monetary policy, specifically negative interest rates, is limited. In this paper, we find evidence that movements in the Nikkei 225 Stock, the exchange rate, unemployment, and GDP coincide with movements expected under conventional monetary policy. We also find evidence of statistically significant impact on GDP and unemployment. However, we could not find evidence it had an effect on the inflation rate. Overall, this paper finds that the unconventional monetary policy of negative interest rates followed similar movements as that of conventional monetary policy.

Keywords: GDP, monetary policy, unemployment, inflation rate, 2008 financial crisis, exchange rate, policy analysis.