Japan’s Economic Malaise
In 1989 Japan was widely viewed as an economic super-power. After three decades of robust economic growth it had risen to become the world’s second-largest economy. Japanese companies seemed to be obliterating entire American industries, from automobiles and semiconductors to earthmoving equipment and consumer electronics. Japanese companies were buying assets in the United States, including movie studios (Universal Studios and Columbia Pictures), golf courses (Pebble Beach), and real estate (the Rockefeller Center in New York). The stock market was booming, the Nikkei index hitting an all-time high of 38,957 in December 1989, an increase of more than 600 percent since 1980. Property prices had risen so much that one square mile of Tokyo was said to be worth more than the entire United States. Books were written about the Japanese threat to American dominance. Management theorists praised Japanese companies for their strategic savvy and management excellence. Economists were predicting that Japan would overtake America to become the world’s largest economy by 2010.
It didn’t happen. In quick succession the stock market collapsed and property prices rapidly followed it down. Japanese banks, which had financed much of the boom in asset prices with easy money, now found their balance sheets loaded with bad debt, and they sharply contracted lending. As the stock market plunged and property prices imploded, individuals saw their net worth shrink. Japanese consumers responded by sharply reducing spending, depressing domestic demand and sending the economy into a recession. And there it stayed—for most of the next two decades. Today the Japanese economy is barely larger in real terms than it was in 1989. In 2010, China passed Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy. The average price of a home in Japan is the same as it was in 1983, way