If there is one thing that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his policy-making team excel at it is setting ambitious goals. Abe took office in late 2012 vowing to “bring Japan back” with a raft of reforms, strong government spending and a barrage of monetary stimulus. Those “three arrows,” as he called them, were meant to banish a long spell of deflation and put the country on track for a sustained recovery.
