A Report On Growth Of Japan From The Post War Period

Economically, Japan is one of the most highly developed nations in the world. Japanese brand like Toyota, Sony, Fujifilm and Panasonic are famous across the globe. One common pattern which is followed by Japan from the very beginning is to import raw materials and processed them to make finished products which are sold domestically and exported. Agriculture and transportation are the highly developed industries in Japan. Japan’s main agricultural product is rice and most rice eaten in Japan is home grown. Shinkansen, or bullet trains ,are

Beginning from the last years of World War II and then following Japan’s defeat to the allied forces, the Japanese had to endure arguably its most painful few years to date. The majority of Japan’s cities had all been completely destroyed during the war, especially in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the first atomic bombs were dropped. As a result, the majority of Japanese population had to not only survive the extremes of the seasons in make-shift shelters, but also endure starvation due to the lack of food and water available. However, thanks to the American occupation of Japan following the end of the war, Japan was finally able to recover. The year 1950 turned out to be the beginning of an extended period of Japanese economic and social prosperity. Starting from 1950 to 1990, Japan had experienced unrivalled miraculous economic growth and success in comparison to the majority of other developed countries. For this reason, the Japanese economic success during this period is known by many as the “economic miracle”. There are multiple reasons behind this so called “miracle”, and this essay explores some of these causes. In particular focusing on the major factors which include; the American occupation of Japan, the Korean and Vietnam War as well as social and economic reasons.

Japan’s unemployment rate of about 4% opposed to the U.S. unemployment rate of close to 10%. Even the financial debt to GDP ration is an advantage, and debt in the private sector has not increased unlike the U.S. and European countries, (Time, 2009). In addition, since Japan is a huge exporter and with the U.S. demand going downward, the international balances and growth declined especially as the dollar value dropped and the yen surged. •

Today in Japan, a reinvention is necessary. There are many struggles with the young generation, the old generation, and catastrophic events which should be addressed. Specifically, the Japanese economy has been experiencing deflation for the past twenty years. In an article, the results of the deflation were described. The authors said, “Because of fewer available jobs and lower

From the sixties through the mid-eighties domestic politics were stable; the Liberal Democratic Party maintained a solid majority in the Diet (parliament) and emphasized close relations with the United States. Japan also achieved record economic growth — averaging 10 percent a year until the seventies. Its economy grew from one less productive than Italy to the third largest in the world, behind only the United States and the Soviet Union. Growth was especially strong in heavy industry, such as steel, chemicals and machinery, and in advanced technology. Almost totally dependent on imports for food and energy, Japan began to face increasing protectionism abroad and serious pollution problems at home. Although Japan has brought pollution under control, trade frictions continued. As one of the most advanced post-industrial societies in the world, the Japanese people enjoyed prosperity and the benefits of a thriving middle-class society.

Although Japan was once a booming economy, it did not necessarily start off that way and it certainly hasn’t remained that way. After World War II, the United States

In 1945, Japan was devastated and lost a quarter of the national wealth after suffering a defect in the second world war. A majority of the commercial buildings and accommodation had been demolished, and massive machinery and equipment formerly used in production for the civil market were out of service to provide metal for military supplies (Miyazaki 1967). Despite the trash and ruins had left over in Japan, Japan was able to rebuilding its infrastructure and reconstruct their economy. It is revealed that the Japanese economy was on its way to recovery, which received a rapid development since the war, and the reconstruction of Japan had spent less than forty years to become the world’s second largest economy in the 1980s. This essay will explore the three factors account for the economic growth of post-war Japan: the financial assistance from the United States, the external environment, and the effective policy of Japanese government.

The Japanese economy, the 2nd largest in the world, accounts for 7.1% Global World GDP, at US$4.6 triliion and a per capita income of approximately US$33,550 (World Bank 2006). As a result of globalisation, literacy levels are at 99% and the general living standards of the

Since the end of World War II, Japan's economic strategy for growth was based on exports, that allowed the development of its powerful industrial sector. During the 1980s, Japanese automakers in particular were enjoying an unprecedented and largely unexpected period of prosperity. They managed to establish a successful domestic automobile industry and to gradually sell their products abroad. Thanks to their competitive advantage in producing cars with respect to foreign competitors, due to labor differences, technical efficiencies (lighter and fuel-efficient cars), better designs, and of

The economy of Japan over the last few decades has had a series of highs and lows. Japan’s post-war growth, due mostly to extremely successful car and consumer electronics industries, was pretty much over by the 1990s. This, combined with the post-war Japanese baby boom and later on drop in fertility rates has led to a significant macroeconomic impacts. Demographic changes have heavily influenced savings, investment, and inward streaming revenue. Policymakers created key errors while struggling to swing the structure of their balance sheets. Economic growth in Japan has been predicted to reach 1.0% in 2017 before slowing down to 0.8% in 2018. At the moment fiscal consolidation (a policy aimed at reducing government deficits and debt accumulation) has stopped, which should aid Japan in dealing with the impact of the appreciating yen. Though there has been a decline in business investment, private consumption is still adding to economic growth. The real GDP (total value of all final goods and services produced within a country’s borders) of Japan has increased at a 1.6% annualized rate since the start of 2016 also in spite of yen appreciation.

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of a set of the recent Japanese government policies. Before China overtaking the second largest economy in the world in 2011, Japan has kept the position for several decades. However, after the housing bubbles burst in 1990s, Japan had economically struggled where it can no longer grow at such a substantial rate as previously. In fact, its economy had shrunk when other neigbouring economies, such as Taiwan and South Korea, had prospered. So Abe Shinzo was elected as the prime minister of Japan and he has tried to revive the economy under Abenomics; yet, its impacts on the real economy seem ineffective until recently. This is why I think it will be interesting to evaluate whether Abenomics was the best option for Japanese government for reviving the economy from the prolonged recession.

Japan ranks as the third largest economy in the world as of 2010. The GDP at current prices in US dollars in Japan was reported at 5068.06 billion in 2009, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Japan’s resurgence after World War II has however reached an inflection point in yearly 1989 after the burst of Japan’s asset price and real estate bubbles. As can be seen from the graph below, Japan’s GDP has hovered around the same level through more than 20 years of economic stagnation. The GDP’s slow growth has been exacerbated by the world financial crisis of 2008. A major landmark of Japan’s stagnation has been the BOJ’s fight against deflation.

Japan’s ongoing economic stagnation for decades has provoked wider debate in the US. Along with the raise in unemployment rate and weak industrial production relative to other major industrial countries, the economic malaise in Japan was described as a lost decade. Studies have shown that Japanese economy suffers of severe problems that are not only cyclical but also structural in nature. In this paper, I will shed light on the major cause of the prolonged slowdown of the Japanese economy by analyzing the impact of supply-side factors, including the decline in total factor productivity (TFP) and Japan’s aging population.

The second year after the World War II, Japan started embarking on the economy revival. Due to the country was devastated by long term War, the production capacity has been fallen sharply, and also resulted by

Japan enjoyed a period of high productive development since the end of World War II. It boomed in the late 60’s and 70’s and then came to an immense halt in the 80’s and 90’s and still vacillating today. Since the beginning of 60’s, Japans growth has been called a “post-war economic miracle” (11). This is because, in that time, they had an “average growth rate of 10% in the 1960s, 5% in the 1970s, and 4% in the 1980s” (11). In this time, according to Richard Katz in his book “Japan: The System That Soured” the Japanese government applied a “developing country strategy” which involved very low interest rates so that Japanese companies, that during that time, needed money to start up their businesses, could take out loans at a extraordinarily cheap price (10). They also used a system called WAT. This system was “a peer-to-peer complementary currency system” (12) which would “allow for small businesses to issue IOUs (called WAT-ticket) to their suppliers” (12). This allowed for a “high-cost structure” (10) where “efficient manufacturers and inefficient service-related sectors” were able to “co-exist” (10).