In fiscal 1965, the Japanese Government could not continue to balance the budget and started to issue government bonds. Gross debt of the national government grew rapidly following the first oil crisis. Consequently, Japanese banks and the Bank of Japan have greatly increased their holdings of government bonds. The Bank of Japan, in particular, has had to increase the amount of outright purchases of long-term government bonds since the introduction of the quantitative easing policy in March 2001. Recently, many market participants and economists argue that a largely treasury-only portfolio of central banks would be appropriate as the markets for government bonds are large and liquid. This paper first examines the course of this large increase in the outright purchase of government bonds by the Bank of Japan, and then looks at a popular belief that the issuance of central bank notes should be supported by long-term government bonds. In addition, the paper shows that this popular belief is premised on the specific historical condition of the fiscal deficit. The paper also looks at the relationship between orthodox monetary policies and the accumulation of government bonds. The paper does not follow the old argument that central banks should hold only gold, foreign exchange and real bills, rather, it contends that the main issue is the way contemporary capitalism, financial systems and monetary policies are analyzed. Japan's future fiscal condition will be severely affected by its ageing society and the apparently ever increasing strength of the Yen. Under such circumstances, the Bank of Japan is likely to be under pressure to maintain the price of long-term government bonds and thereby keep long term interest rates low. Such a policy is likely to affect central bank independence, a very dangerous prospect. Finally, this paper emphasizes that central bank notes are not supplied exogenously. Private sector banks supply money (deposits) endogenously and people obtain central bank notes by withdrawing deposits. The demand for central bank notes is a part of the total demand for monetary aggregates supplied by private sector banks. The relationship, therefore, between the accumulation of government bonds and the structure of balance sheets of central banks concerns the overall contemporary financial systems.

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This paper considers the role of information in executing the institutional reform. Each individual is assumed to be ex ante faced with the uncertainty about effects of institutional reform. We suppose that there are two kinds of uncertainty; uncertainty of type 1 which arises from the imcomplete information about structural parmeter (tax reform), and uncertainty of type 2 which arises from the change of economic enviornment in the future (financial reform) . In the case of tax reform (resp. financial reform), “information” means the data about structural parameter (resp. the government's commitment to take complementary measures) .
When the uncertainty about effects of institutional reform is small, if many individuals' welfare can be potentially improved by it, the common consent is easilly given to the institutional reform, and thus information plays no role in executing it. On the contrary, when the uncertainty about effects of institutional reform is great and the individuals are more risk averse, even if social welfare can be potentially improved, there may be the possibility that the proposal for reforming the present system is refused by a member of a community, because expected payoff under new system may be smaller than payoff under status quo for many individuals (i.e. V^h (0) < u^h for many h) . Then, the government is required to provide the information to the individuals to reduce the uncertainty and execute the institutional reform. The value of information is positive under some conditions (i.e. V^h (g) > V^h (0) ), but the institutional reform is not always realized by the provision of in-formation, and the feasibility of it depends on the quality (credibility) of information. Since, in the case of drastic reform, the uncertainty about the effects of it is seemed to be great, the information about structural parameter plays the important role in execut-ing “design” tax reform, and additional regulations are needed to stabilize new financial system, which is formulated with complete abolition of old regulations.

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可処分所得は、1990年代末から不況により減少傾向にあります。また、景気回復政として低金利が2000年代初頭から15年以上続いている。そして、金融当局は「貯蓄から投資へ」というスローガンを出して、家計がハイリスクハイリターン金融商品を保有するように促した。しかし、低金利下では貯蓄における資産効果は小さい。さらに、低金利政策による金融機関の経営悪化も家計に何らかの影響をもたらしていると推測される。本稿では、この低金利の金融環境が家計にどのような影響をもたらしているのかを考察する。

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わが国における金融自由化の過程を欧米諸国と比較してみると，日本的特色として，業務範囲の自由化が重視されてきたことを指摘できる。たとえば，金融機関利用者のメリットに直結する金利・株式売買手数料・保険料率等の自由化，特に小口取引に関わる自由化が，1990年代半ばから2000年にかけて完了した事実こそ，こうした日本的特質を明白に物語っているのである。
損保業界も同様であり，2000年６月に料率自由化を完了している。一方，生保業界では，1960年代から契約者配当の自由化を実施してきたわけだが，利用者に周知する努力を欠いたため，こうした事実は意外と知られていない。
本論では，旧大蔵省銀行局保険部の監督下にありながら，料率自由化に関し全く異なる対応を見せてきた生・損保両業界に注目し，自由化の経緯・経営面への影響等を比較・検証する

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