Secret Meetings Hidden in the Schedule: Who is Whispering to the Bank of Japan?
Faculty Sponsor: Imai Masami
Miyuka Kawamura
Miyuka Kawamura (29’) from Japan completed the QAC Apprenticeship in 2026 in the summer following her freshman year. Before college, she attended British International School Phuket. At Wesleyan, she is double-majoring in Economics and Neuroscience.
Having been affected by the weakening yen as a Third Culture Kid who lives in Phuket, Thailand, she has developed a strong interest in the Japanese economy, particularly the factors that shape monetary policy and their impact on families and pensioners. Spending time learning about Japanese economic history and methods to best leverage LLMs has been very meaningful for her this summer.
On campus, Miyuka is a part of the Freeman Asian Scholars Association Executive Committee, the Feng Lab, Onomatopoeia Acapella Group, Japanese/ Thai Student Association, Psi Upsilon, and Equestrian Club. Although she enjoyed her time as a National Education Opportunity Network Teaching Fellow last semester, she is excited to become a Resource Centre Programming Assistant, College of Environment Fellow, International Student Buddy and one of the leaders of the Wesleyan Entrepreneurship Club this upcoming semester. During her free time, she loves doing aerial, travelling around the world, going to museums and spending time at beaches, having lived on an island for most of her life.
Abstract: On April 1, 1998, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) became legally independent from the Japanese government and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) following a substantial worldwide shift toward establishing autonomous central banks for long-term price stability. Nonetheless, some leaders, including Sanae Takaichi, the current Prime Minister (PM), have openly expressed strong preferences about monetary policy, raising longstanding questions about political pressure on the central bank. With central bank independence (CBI) being important, this project constructs and interprets data to examine whether the BOJ’s formal, de jure independence is reflected in de facto political practice. Overall, I attempt to unravel instances where there is high risk of political pressure and contribute to the study of CBI by showing how meeting-based evidence collected from public schedule data can be useful.
Using the by-the-minute, public PM’s daily schedules on Yomiuri Shinbun, one of Japan’s major news outlets, I investigate interactions between the PM and relevant financial officials, including the BOJ Governor, BOJ Deputy Governor and the MOF. More specifically, I record the meeting dates, start times/ end times, durations, locations, participants, official titles, and PM party affiliation for the 2,130 financial official interactions detected between November 8th, 1989 and May 31, 2026.
Overall, the meeting patterns show substantial variation in PM interactions with financial officials. Abe, Koizumi, Murayama, and Kishida generally rank the highest in meeting frequency and duration, while the Abenomics period stands out for high PM-BOJ contact and one-on-one interaction. When paired with supporting historical, political, and economic evidence that points to the same underlying narrative, it can be said that this data is suggestive of political influence.
ACTUAL-FINAL-30×40-Miyuka-QAC-Summer-Poster