Downsides for Japanese citizens

The cheap yen has caused Japanese citizens to face higher prices for imported goods, including food and energy.

• Those costs are passed along to Japanese consumers whose wages were not rising as quickly as prices, leading to a slump in buying.
• Data this month showed that changed in June: real wages rose for the first time in about 2 years.

The other side: While foreign tourism is at an all-time high, it's not so great of a time for Japanese travelers: For them, international and domestic tourism is expected to remain below pre-pandemic levels this year.

State of play: "This depreciation helps on the external side—but it can come at this expense of the domestic side," Michael Wolf, a global economist at Deloitte, tells Axios.

• The tourism boom has also been a nuisance for some locals, while hospitality businesses are facing labor shortages, in an echo of the U.S. in 2022.
• At the Bank of Japan's last policy meeting, one official said the swift weakening of the yen laid bare the economy's issues, that "it had therefore been difficult for Japan's economy as a whole to receive the benefits of the yen's depreciation," the BOJ's minutes said.

The bottom line: The currency adjustment triggered by monetary easing is, at long last, getting the job done of getting Japanese growth and inflation higher, with tourism being one major driver. But that doesn't mean everybody's happy about it.