Reviving Japan S Economy

Japan’s weak economic performance in the 1990s has had implications not only for its own people, but for the world economy more generally, given Japan’s importance as a trading partner and supplier of capital. Therefore, it is essential that Japan unlock its growth potential. The IMF has worked with the Japanese authorities to identify the policies needed to bring Japan’s economy out of its recent slump. This book contributes to this ongoing debate, whose major topics include the need for an integrated policy strategy based on the decisive restructuring of the banking and corporate sectors, combined with macroeconomic policies designed to bring an end to deflation.

Criticism of current Japanese macroeconomic and financial policies is so wide spread that the reasons for it are assumed to be self-evident. In this volume, Adam Posen explains in depth why a shift in Japanese fiscal and monetary policies, as well as financial reform, would be in Japan's self-interest. He demonstrates that Japanese economic stagnation in the 1990s is the result of mistaken fiscal austerity and financial laissez-faire rather than a structural decline of the "Japan Model." The author outlines a program for putting the country back on the path to solid economic growth - primarily through permanent tax cuts and monetary stabilization - and draws broader lessons from the recent Japanese policy actions that led to the country's continuing stagnation.

Japan will recover and its economic achievements will once again earn the world's admiration, with sustained annual growth of three percent, perhaps more, well within reach. This is the confident forecast that begins Japanese Phoenix: The Long Road to Economic Revival by the author of Japan: The System That Soured, which several years ago accurately predicted Japan's current travails at a time when others were prematurely pronouncing full recovery. Katz warns however that there is bad news to go with the good. So deep-seated are Japan's dysfunctions that, even if it did everything right today, it would take at least five years for truly vibrant growth to take hold. But Japan will not do everything right. Opposition to reform is deep-seated and a myriad of vested interests and millions of jobs are at stake. Still he notes, there is little doubt that reform will succeed. Japanese Phoenix tells the story of the struggle between the forces of reform and the forces of resistance. It dissects Prime Minister Koizumi's role in the process, and explains why Japan is in so much trouble and what needs to be done. It explore the debates among economists and gives a careful progress report on all the moves made so far in the name of reform - from greater direct foreign investment, to the financial "Big Bang", to ending one-party rule by the Liberal Democratic Party. Katz concludes that this is just the second round of a 15-round fight. Japan is a great nation currently trapped in obsolete institutions. As it has before, Japan will find a way to surmount its problems and regain its forward progress.

This book focuses on Japan's recent recovery from a decade-long stagnation, with particular attention to the unfinished policy agenda and the international spillovers of Japan's policies, through background studies (both analytical and descriptive) by IMF economists.

This volume presents an up-to-date study of the current state and future of Japanese economic growth, arguing that an information and communications technology revolution could revive Japanese economic growth.

New perspectives on Japan's "lost decade" viewed in the context of recent financial turmoil.

Since the end of World War II, the Japanese economy has seen rapid changes and remarkable progress. It has also experienced a bubble economy and period of prolonged stagnation. The book seeks to address three major questions: What kind of changes have taken place in the postwar years? In what sense has there been progress? What lessons can be drawn from the experiences? The book is organized as follows: It begins with an overview of the postwar Japanese economy, using data to highlight historical changes. The four major economic issues in the postwar Japanese economy (economic restoration, rapid economic growth, the bubble economy and current topics) are addressed, with particular focus on the meaning of economic growth and the bubble economy. The next chapters examine the important economic issues for Japan related to a welfare-oriented society, including income distribution, asset distribution, and the relative share of income. Another chapter deals with the household structure of Japan, the pension issue, and the importance of the effect of demographic change on income distribution. The final chapter gives a brief summary, examines quality of life as a lesson of this research, and briefly outlines a proposal for a basic design towards achieving a high satisfaction level society. This book will be of interest to economists, economic historians and political scientists and would be useful as a text for any course on the Japanese economy.