Haruhiko Kuroda is poised to become the Bank of Japan’s longest-running governor at the end of this month, testament to his ability to keep political and market pressure at bay despite the failure of his unprecedented monetary experiment to spark inflation.
When Kuroda took the helm, in March 2013, then Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke was fretting over plans to taper bond buying. Mario Draghi at the European Central Bank was saving the euro with "whatever it takes,” and Mark Carney was still months away from joining the Bank of England.
Kuroda has learned from and outlasted them all. When COVID-19 shuttered huge swathes of the global economy early last year, many of his pioneering policies were adapted by the latest generation of central bankers to keep businesses from failing and help lower borrowing costs for record government stimulus.