Satoshi Sumita, who headed the Bank of Japan during the nation's asset bubble in the late 1980s, has died. He was 92.
Sumita, who headed the bank between 1984 and 1989, died of pneumonia in Tokyo on Sept. 7, the BOJ said in a statement Wednesday.
A former Finance Ministry bureaucrat, Sumita was in charge of policy when the economy was ailing from the surge in the yen resulting from the 1985 Plaza Accord.
During the first three years of his term, the central bank halved the benchmark short-term rate to 2.5 percent to shore up the economy.
The central bank didn't raise rates again until May 1989 on concern about surging asset prices. The Nikkei 225 stock average peaked at the end of that year.
Sumita served as the Finance Ministry's top official for two years before becoming central bank governor.