Any failure by the Bank of Japan to expand its asset-purchase program at tomorrow’s board meeting would sow confusion over its policy, a former policy maker said. Inaction “would be a disaster for communication,” Atsushi Mizuno, who served on the Bank of Japan board from 2004 to 2009, said in an interview yesterday in Tokyo. All 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before tomorrow’s gathering predict Governor Masaaki Shirakawa and his colleagues will boost asset purchases amid forecasts for growth to slow through the year. Mizuno, now a managing director at Credit Suisse, said more important than the size of ... (full story)