Japan Economics 272 Day One

1. What do you know about Japan? stylized facts –what do we mean by that? broad generalizations! hence ALWAYS wrong, by construction –economic facts face the same issue based on some image of what matters, and typically are an aggregation –theory as well theory is a deliberate simplification of reality

Stylized facts about Japan An island nation –LDP in power almost continuously –Heavy industry, high tech Cf. services (3º), industry (2º), agri & mining (1º) –Social hierarchy (incl managerial) –Well-off –150 million –Literate, lots of higher education

2. What are the important questions? descriptive issues –Pop, income level (Y/L), natural resources, climate institutional issues –extent of monopolization, unions –Political economy issues: regulation etc microeconomic issues Structure of output Labor markets, capital markets technology macroeconomic issues –U, trade (“big”), MP, FP, g, π

3. What do we expect to be the same in Japan?

4. What do we expect to be different in Japan?

5. What (of importance) might be different?

Representative issues political economy history –parliamentary system (Diet) –bureaucratic structure ("vertical segmentation") –central - local issues (not a Federal system!) –monolingual, relatively homogeneous ethnically not true historically!

economics Rich ($33,000), populous (128 mil) –US ($43,000 and 300 mil) high growth –the first non-Western developing country to "make it" demographics –the first society to shrink due to low fertility Russia is currently shrinking due to increased mortality Deflation!