Rethinking Japan’s “Lost Decades”
Mises Daily: Friday, August 29, 2014 by Peter St. Onge
by Peter St. Onge
One of the great economic myths of our time is Japan’s “lost decades.” As Japan doubles-down on inflationary stimulus, it’s worth reviewing the facts.
The truth is that the Japanese and US economies have performed in lock-step since 2000, and their performances have matched each other going as far back as 1980.
Either Japan’s not in crisis, or the US has been in crisis for a good thirty-five years. You can’t have it both ways.
Here’s a chart of per capita real GDP for both Japan and the US from 2000 to 2011. Per capita real GDP is the GDP measure that best answers the question: “is the typical person getting richer?”
The two curves look like they came from the same country:
Next, we can go back to 1980, to see where the myth came from. Japan was just entering its “bubble” decade:
https://mises.org/daily/6860/Rethinking-Japans-Lost-Decades
