A Japanese national flag flies while signage for the Bank of Japan (BOJ) is displayed outside the central bank's headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, on Tuesday, March 15, 2016.Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg
Here's what Japan has to show for three years of Abenomics and its focus on unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus: An overvalued currency, weak domestic demand, faltering exports and the spectre of crippling deflation still hovering over the economic landscape.
The chances are also high that the country has managed to slide into yet another recession, which would be its third since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came to power in late 2012 with a bold reform agenda quickly dubbed Abenomics and a Trump-style slogan to make Japan great again.
Last September, the government launched a reboot labelled Abenomics 2.0, which has yet to ignite anything resembling a sturdy recovery. In fact, Japan's prognosis has turned so gloomy that a prominent economist is regarded as a sunny optimist for insisting that his country's long "winter" will end by the 2020s with average annual growth of 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent.
Looking into his crystal ball, Hajime Takata, chief economist at the Mizuho Research Institute in Tokyo, sees the world's third-largest economy emerging from its "frozen state" and his aging fellow citizens shedding the cloak of pessimism they have wrapped around themselves for almost a generation.
Future expansion may be modest and heavily dependent on such external drivers as strong demand in healthier Asian markets, a regional infrastructure boom and a shift in focus to the export of services – particularly if the Trans-Pacific Partnership takes effect – to counter continuing weakness in the demographically challenged domestic market. The 2020 Olympics will also provide a major boost in tourism and confidence.
"Japan is gradually going back to a normal situation," Mr. Takata assured me after a lecture at the University of Toronto.
But while he espies an end to his country's bitter winter of discontent, the immediate future remains clouded.
Mizuho pegs growth in the first quarter at a mere annualized 0.2 per cent and only 0.4 per cent for all of 2016. That means it wouldn't take much of a stumble to shove the economy back into recession, following an unexpected fourth-quarter decline of 1.1 per cent.
The strongest headwind is in the export market, where slower demand and a stubbornly high yen have hit corporate profits and dampened what little enthusiasm there was for the wage gains that policy makers have made a centrepiece of their strategy to boost consumer spending. Exports declined for the fifth consecutive month in February, despite higher shipments to China for the first time since last July.
Not even the Bank of Japan's shock-and-awe shift to negative interest rates has taken the steam out of the safe-harbour currency. But it has had an unintended effect on the financial-services sector, where unionized workers at the biggest banks say they will not be seeking any increase in basic pay.
More tightening by the U.S. Federal Reserve could help steer the yen lower, but that may not be in the cards. "Our forecast is nil," Mr. Takata said of Fed rate hikes this year.
As for Japan's central bank, Governor Haruhiko Kuroda offered a passionate defence last week of its negative-interest policy in response to angry institutional investors and bank customers.
Does that mean we'll see a deeper dive into negativity beyond the current level of minus-0.1 per cent on certain excess reserves held for commercial banks?
"They have the option to do more and more cuts," Mr. Takata said. "But I doubt it, because now there is some concern about competitive devaluations for every country in the world."
Mr. Abe will chair the next Group of Seven gathering in late May and won't be eager to ruffle the feathers of other leaders worried about a currency war. The Bank of Japan is likely to focus instead on wider asset purchases, adding more exchange-traded funds and real estate investment trusts to its bulging balance sheet.
The Prime Minister also won't be thrilled by the prospect of facing his counterparts just days after the government is scheduled to release first-quarter economic numbers. So if it turns out that Japan slipped into a technical recession, Mr. Takata suspects the announcement could be delayed until after the summit.
Meanwhile, Mr. Abe faces intense pressure to once again postpone a consumption-tax hike to 10 per cent from 8 per cent that is scheduled for April, 2017.
Mr. Takata speculates that could lead Mr. Abe to the same response as in late 2014, when the governing coalition was faced with a recession and a planned sales-tax increase – a snap election to take advantage of a weak opposition and an 18-month delay in the tax grab.
At the time, Mr. Abe assured voters that "Abenomics will increase employment and wages" and "bring the warm winds of economic recovery" across Japan.
If Mr. Takata is right, that spring thaw is still several years away.