摘要

Japan's economic bubble burst in the early 1990s, and the country entered its famous"lost decade"--a period of stagnation and economic disruption that persisted until 2003.The current declines in global equity and real estate markets have eerie parallels to Japan'seconomic woes of the 1990s. If we are to avoid repeating Japan's experience on a global scale, wemust understand what happened, why it happened, and the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) ofJapan's policy choices. In this volume, prominent economists--Japan specialists and others--bringstate-of-the-art models and analytic tools to bear on these questions. The essays generate new factsand new findings about Japan's lost decade. As much of the research shows, the slowdown can bebroken down into two phases: a typical recession, followed by a breakdown in the economy likely dueto insufficient restructuring, which is not well described by conventional models. The contributorsoffer forceful arguments showing that Japan's experience, and the unconventional--sometimesunsuccessful--measures adopted by Japan's government and central bank, offer valuable lessons forour post-boom world.ContributorsKenn Ariga, Robert Barsky, Diego Comin, Robert Dekle, Kyoji Fukao,Koichi Hamada, Takeo Hoshi, Ryo Kambayashi, Anil K Kashyap, Takao Kato, Satoshi Koibuchi, Philip R.Lane, John Muellbauer, Kiko Murata, Maurice Obstfeld, Ryosuke Okazawa, Joe Peek, Ulrike Schaede,David E. Weinstein