The Ministry of Finance, an institution that has shaped the views of Japanese lawmakers for generations, is waking to a new reality after three years of government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
There has been a perceptible shift of power in Tokyo — away from the ministry and its insistence on higher taxes and restrained spending — to the office of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his Cabinet and a close circle of advisers.
Through personnel appointments, the use of independent experts and even foreign Nobel laureates, Abe and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga have blunted pressure from the ministry, known as MOF, to focus efforts on reining in swelling public debt in an economy struggling to escape deflation. The administration is now debating a second straight delay to an increase in the nation's sales tax, and has sought the guidance of foreign economists including Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman in the process, side-stepping the ministry.