The lost thirteen years: the return to the gold standard controversy in Japan, 1919–1932

This chapter explores the relationship between economic ideas and economic policy during the period up to, and including, the Showa Depression in Japan, paying particular attention to the return to the gold standard controversy. There has been a growing interest in the way in which a certain economic policy is determined, in a newly emerging field of positive political economy in particular, according to which policy is determined in a choice-theoretic manner in that policy makers maximize their objective functions subject to constraints.1