Obuchi-Mori LDP — fiscal-stimulus lost-decade response (1998-2001)

Doctrine — stated goals and content

LDP fiscal-activist Keynesian — Obuchi styled himself the "world's number-one debtor prime minister" and explicitly reversed Hashimoto's fiscal consolidation. Economic school: old-LDP developmental-state Keynesianism with public-works-heavy supplementary budgets — centre-right on social issues but fiscally expansionary. Key policy content: (i) ¥16.7tn Comprehensive Economic Stimulus Package April 1998 (initiated under Hashimoto, deployed under Obuchi); (ii) ¥23.9tn Emergency Economic Package November 1998; (iii) ¥18tn "Year of the Golden Pig" supplementary budget November 1999 (¥6.5tn real-water public works); (iv) Financial Revitalisation Act October 1998 creating the Resolution and Collection Corporation and Financial Reconstruction Commission, Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan nationalised October 1998, Nippon Credit Bank December 1998; (v) Zero-Interest-Rate Policy launched 12 February 1999 under BoJ Governor Hayami (lifted August 2000, reinstated with QE March 2001); (vi) ¥11tn Emergency Economic Package Mori administration November 2000; (vii) e-Japan Strategy January 2001 — national broadband and IT plan; (viii) Ministry reorganisation January 2001 collapsed 22 ministries into 12. Popularity: Obuchi personally popular before stroke; Mori collapsed to ~9% approval after the Ehime Maru incident and gaffes, resigned April 2001. Coherence line: discretionary Keynesian fiscal push plus ZIRP plus bank nationalisation — the high-water mark of Japanese fiscal-monetary expansion before the Koizumi pivot.