The document discusses Japan's ongoing struggle with deflation and inflation since the global financial crisis, despite massive quantitative easing by the Bank of Japan that has increased its assets to over 400 trillion yen. While consumer prices saw a brief spike in 2014 due to a consumption tax hike, core inflation recently fell back to negative levels, indicating that Abenomics has yet to achieve the elusive goal of sustained moderate inflation and reflation of the Japanese economy through higher demand. Continued structural reforms will be needed to boost domestic demand and shift Japan towards the type of "demand pull" inflation policymakers are aiming for.