ABSTRACT
During their lifetimes, the Japanese economy has made great progress. Despite its serious setbacks in the Great Depression and its later collapse after the Second World War, between 1900 and 1970, Japanese manufacturing industry expanded 150 times. In comparison, during the same period, that of the United States expanded fourteen times, Italy seventeen times, Germany nine times and France six times. Economic growth has been especially conspicuous since 1955 and in the fifteen years 1955 to 1970, Japan’s industrial production expanded 6.7 times (Oouchi et al. 1971). Therefore, Japanese people who are now in their seventies experienced these economic changes when they were between 20 and 40 years old. This means it was they who really created the rapid economic development of the nation.
