Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has tied the Bank of Japan’s hands with a delay in a sales-tax increase that’s hurt confidence in the nation’s finances, a former chief economist at the central bank said. Damaged trust in Abe’s commitment to cut the deficit will make it “extremely difficult” for the BOJ to exit record stimulus without risking a surge in bond yields, Hideo Hayakawa said in an interview yesterday. Additional easing would also be hard because Governor Haruhiko Kuroda has effectively made fiscal improvement a premise for any further monetary stimulus, he said. The criticism from Hayakawa, who left the BOJ 20 ... (full story)