ABSTRACT
Japan’s economic fortunes have moved up and down so much in the past 150 years, it almost seems like a soap opera economy. Japan’s economic miracle had begun after 1945, and by the 1970s Japan was an industrial superpower, with the second largest economy in the non-Communist world. In the 1980s Japan’s economic prowess was as grossly overestimated as it had been underestimated a few decades earlier. Then came the 1990s and the “lost decade.” As the first lost decade turns into the second, there is no quick relief in sight. Yet, the authors believe, Japan will succeed. Rather than a soap opera, Japan is a phoenix. Struck down, it rises, and rises yet again. Today, even reform’s greatest opponents feel obliged to mouth chants in its honor. Koizumi’s entire appeal, and the way he came to power, was based on the population’s yearning and hope for reform.
