How the Japan curve changed across regimes
Historical yield curves provide more information than a time series of one maturity. They show whether a repricing originated at the policy-sensitive front end, whether long-term yields moved with or against it, and whether the market transitioned through inversion, flattening or steepening as the macro regime changed.
The JGB curve is especially useful for studying the interaction between monetary-policy regimes and market pricing. Long maturities can contain information about the credibility and limits of policy frameworks even when the front end is tightly anchored.
Falling growth and inflation expectations drove a secular decline in JGB yields.
Japan became an early laboratory for unconventional monetary policy and persistent low-rate conditions.
The Bank of Japan explicitly targeted the shape of the curve, making the 10-year sector a direct policy transmission channel.