Japan Takes Flight

During a two-day meeting later this week in a stately neo-baroque building in Tokyo, nine men may vote to end of one of the oddest periods in the history of central bankingand send one of the clearest signals yet that Japan's economy has finally emerged from 15 years of stagnation. Led by governor Toshihiko Fukui, the monetary-policy committee at the Bank of Japan (BOJ) will vote on whether to raise its overnight lending rate to 0.25% or leave it at zero, where it has been for more than five years. That shift would not just demonstrate that the BOJ believes the...