Is it time to slay some sacred cows about financing growth?

Tokyo

ARE we entering, almost without realising it, a new paradigm of combined fiscal and monetary policy and, if so, does that mean conventional wisdom about the need for independent central banks and for governments to be beholden to them is outdated?

It is tempting to think so.

The shift could begin to crystalise this weekend, when the finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of Seven (G-7) advanced economies meet in the Japanese city of Sendai for their annual policy-review summit.

It will be an elite gathering, featuring, among others, key figures such as US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, their count…