Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's announcement to shelve the planned second stage of the consumption tax hike may be a crowd-pleaser ahead of an Upper House election next month. Few people like paying more tax.
However, experts are divided.
Economists such as Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman urged Abe to delay the hike at a time of weakness in the economy, for fear that it would trigger deflation.