Shirakawa Masaaki

Shirakawa Masaaki (born September 27, 1949, Kitakyushu, Japan) is a Japanese banker and economist who served (2008–13) as governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ), the country’s central bank.

Shirakawa joined the BOJ in 1972 after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Tokyo. He later studied in the United States at the University of Chicago, earning a master’s degree in economics in 1977 before returning to Japan. Shirakawa was named general manager of the central bank’s Oita branch in 1994 and general manager for the Americas at the BOJ’s New York City office in 1995. He was appointed an executive director of the bank in 2002.

Shirakawa was widely respected for his expertise in monetary policy. Many observers saw him as the mastermind behind the unorthodox policy of “quantitative easing” that the central bank introduced in March 2001. Intended to combat crippling deflation, the policy involved infusing cash into the Japanese banking system while at the same time pegging interest rates at 0 percent. The BOJ abandoned quantitative easing in 2006 once the economy had stabilized. Shirakawa left the BOJ that year to accept a professorship at the Kyōto University School of Government, where he remained until 2008, when Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo named him governor of the BOJ amid mounting fears of a recession, which ultimately occurred. Japan’s economy largely struggled over the next five years, and Shirakawa stepped down when his term ended in 2013.