If Japan’s experience in the 1990s is anything to go by, central banks that serially disappoint market expectations of higher interest rates will soon see those expectations fall to zero. Financial markets were unnerved by the Federal Reserve’s decision on Thursday to hold interest rates close to zero despite weeks of speculation that it was about to raise them for the first time in almost a decade. For all the caveats about different circumstances, investors are again looking to Japan’s experience of 20 years ago for an inkling of what’s going on now in the major Western economies.