Stelter, D. (2014) “How Japan Bankrupted Itself – Lessons For Europe, The story of Japan’s decline — and the lessons for Europe“, The Globalist, 19 Δεκεμβρίου.
Following the start of Abenomics in 2012, Japan moved back to the center of attention of global financial markets. After two and a half decades of economic stagnation, hopes were high that Japan would escape its long stagnation and deflation.
Plenty of economists around the globe hoped that, in so doing, Japan would show the western world, mainly the Eurozone, the way to do the same and avoid a similar long period of low growth and stagnating incomes.
Conversely, the failure of Abe’s plan for Japan’s recovery would not only be a disaster for the country of the rising sun.
It would also be very bad news for central bankers and politicians in the west as well. It would prove that Keynesian policies don’t work in a world of too much debt and shrinking populations.
To assess the probabilities of these scenarios, it is worthwhile to have a deeper look on how Japan ended up in the current economic malaise.
The erstwhile poster child
Japan served globally as a role model for economic development in the 1980s. After an economic miracle following the Second World War, Japanese companies started to dominate in leading industries like machinery and equipment, automotive and consumer electronics.
Σχετικές αναρτήσεις:
- Wolff, Β. G. (2014) “Lessons from the Bank of Japan for the euro area – Q3 data seem to confirm the fear that the Bank of Japan would miss its target“, Bruegel Institute, 18 Νοεμβρίου.
- Gilbert, Μ. (2014) “ECB Needs Japanese Lessons“, Bloomberg View, 05 Νοεμβρίου.
- Walker, M. (2014) “Europe Is Closely Studying Lessons from Japan – They Fear Euro Zone Is Falling Into Similar Lethargy”, The Wall Street Journal, 29 Ιουνίου.