ABSTRACT
A combination of external forces and internal decay caused the para lytic stagnation and economic morass that has afflicted Japan since the early 1990s. Fundamentally, Japan has failed to respond to the challenges and stimulus of globalization. As the world economy opened and expanded, Japan retrenched. The fact that Japan should experience decline is not surprising - all nations and economies at some stage do decline. What has been extraordinary has been both the speed and the degree with which Japan fell from the dizzying heights of apparent world champion to the pits of the world's sickest - and alarmingly so - industrial economy. Japan is the 'Ottoman Empire' of the 21st century world economy.
