Abstract
Although the Japanese economy has been struggling for over a decade now, the fact remains that it is still the world's second largest economy, which probably accounts for the worldwide concern over its fortunes.This paper shows that Japan continues to cause concern, even though its economy is currently showing signs of recovery with a first quarter 2004 GDP annual growth rate of 5.6 percent, more than the 3.8 percent that economists had predicted. The current recovery is largely spurred by an increase in exports, business investment, and consumer spending. The paper notes that, despite such encouraging trends, however, it is still widely believed that the Japanese economy may not be able to show sustained recovery, as its problems are not cyclical but structural and that many of these structural problems have yet to be resolved.

From the Paper
"However, the Japanese economic formula for success proved to be fallible with the rapidly changing global political and economic environment post 1985. For one, the Japanese system of state-assisted capitalism worked in an era where Japan had few economic competitors in Europe and Asia, and till such time that the United States turned a benign eye on Japanese policies that discouraged imports (Ellington, 1999). In fact, Japan's macroeconomic instability can be traced back to the September 1985 Plaza Accord, when the United States and Japan reached an agreement aimed at reducing the value of the dollar-yen exchange rate (Matsuura et.al, 2003), and the United States began applying pressure on Japan to open up its economy to imports and investment (Ellington, 1999)."

Tags:capitalism, international, trade, yen

Abstract
This paper examines the Japanese economy and current economic problems challenging Japanese policy makers, from stagnating production and unresolved banking questions, to the slowdown in the global markets.

Abstract
This paper explains that Japan's economy leading up to the 1990's was one of great prosperity and stability; however, following the speculative boom in the 1980s, the Japan's asset price bubble burst in the early 1990s, which lead to economic recession. The author points out that one important key to Japan's sustained economic recovery is the restoration of a healthy, functioning banking sector. The paper concludes that the central causes of Japan's recovery are structural and material enough that, failing some major problem, the recovery of the Japanese economy will continue at a slow and stable rate. Illustration.

From the Paper
"Industrial output in 2005 was at the highest level since 2000, with the December figure rising for the fifth straight month after seasonal adjustments. During this time the unemployment rate fell for the third year in a row to just 4.4%, with the number of job seekers making the number of job offers for the first time in more than 13 years. It is due to these factors that Japanese consumers are increasing spending. The consumption propensity of wage-earning households, which is measured by the ratio of household spending to disposable income, registered the highest level in 15 years, at 74.7 percent in 2005. However, there is a problem of declining consumerism in Japan, as the country begins to feel the effects of its aging population."

Tags:consumer, banking, speculation, aging, recession

Abstract
This paper discusses the position of the Japanese economy, which is currently in its worst recession since World War II. The country's economy slowed dramatically in the early 1990s after the bubble economy of the 1970s and 1980s and has not yet recovered. The paper shows that Japan's subsequent problems include declining Gross Domestic Product (GDP), failed stimulus packages, banking inefficiencies, ineffective interest rate policies, deflation, currency devaluation, and Japan's aging population. Presently, its last bastion of hope, exports, are beginning to decrease. This paper argues, therefore, that Japan is not creditworthy. The paper includes a graph.

From the Paper
"Although money in Japan is practically free, companies have no incentive to borrow and invest, and individuals would rather hold on to cash as prices decline. What's worse, the few companies that are actually borrowing money are using it to invest abroad. International investors are not making capital investment in Japan because they have no confidence in the economy. With no capital spending or investing within Japan, its economy continues to stagnate (Noah, 2002)."

Tags:stock, exchange, GDP, bankruptcy

Abstract
The following paper discusses the Japanese economic trends from the era of the rising sun from the postwar recovery of the 1950s to the mid 1970s and finally to the 90's. The author discusses what factors caused the era of the rising sun, namely international, cultural, political, and examines how this trend was based on an economic structure that was influenced but fundamentally different from American capitalism. In addition this paper retraces Japan's fall from glory to find many of the same factors of growth that lead it to its earlier success.

From the Paper
" When the Asian Crisis struck, many economists dismissed the earlier vision of the Japanese miracle as a stroke of luck, and rejected the same factors they had extolled during its growth, denouncing the Japanese economic system as fundamentally dysfunctional and declaring victory of the superior American capitalism. Studying the Japanese system provides many lessons that the American system can emulate or remember to avoid as well. Japan's group collectivism and state-assisted, relationship-based capitalism helped Japan expand rapidly, and has much to offer. However, it also made the system very inflexible, unable to adjust itself to the constantly changing economic circumstances; in the long term, after the growth stopped, the economy suffered because of the system's harmful consequences."

Tags:asia, business, capitalism, economy, japanese, regulation, emerging, era, relationship, growth, rate, miracle

Abstract
In this paper, the author examines the differences in the culture of Japan to America. He looks at the significant differences between Western business culture and Japanese business culture based on studies taken and articles written. In particular the author looks at the work of Professor Yoshimori who tells us that the Japanese mind is complicated because of the archaic ways of thinking that still exist in the depths of the mind of an educated contemporary Japanese man or woman. The author proceeds to discuss the history of the Japanese economy and looks at its industrialization. The paper prudently points out that Japan learnt how to reinvent itself when it came into contact with various innovations, religious, economic and political, but never lost its national character. The paper continues to discuss the methods that the Japanese use to manage and develop their businesses. In conclusion, the author relates that many economists believe the rigidity of the national character has eventually caused Japan's economy to come apart in the past decade.

From the Paper
"Schawecker's Guide also tells us that Buddhism originally was imported to Japan in 538 or 552 AD in form of a present from the king of the friendly Korean kingdom of Kudara (or Paikche). The ruling nobles welcomed the new religion while the common people did not understand its complex theories. After a few conflicts with the native religion Shinto, the two religions soon were able to co-exist harmonically and even complemented each other. During the Nara period, the great Buddhist monasteries in Nara, for example the Todaiji, gained strong political influence which was one of the reasons for the government to move the capital first to Nagaoka (784) and then to Kyodo.
Nevertheless, the problem of politically ambitious and even militant monasteries remained a main issue for the governments during many centuries of Japanese history."

Tags:environment, shinto, monastaries, buddhist, zen, trade, social, glory, growth

Abstract
This paper discusses the changes in the Japanese political economy that have been caused by globalization and other changes in the domestic and international economies. It examines whether Japan's changes are similar to those of other industrial countries that are also subject to the same systematic pressures. The paper then analyzes whether Japan's political economy is converging with other industrial economies or if Japans' changes are different from others'.

Table of Contents:
Executive Summary
History of Japan's Economy
Japan's Economy In Times Of War
Features Of The Current Economy
Changes In The Japanese Economy And The Factors That Generated Them
Demographic Factor
Privatization of Japan
Globalization
Other Changes
Statistics

From the Paper
"What is interesting about this certain period in the Japanese economy is the fact that the state used to trade the rice even before it was harvested. They would acquire several goods and products from international commerce partners, and promise to pay the counter value in rice once it was harvested. Today, we refer to these specific business making techniques as futures trade contracts."
"In the nineteenth century, the ruling power of Japan became the Tokugwana government. For the first time in the Japanese political economic history, the Tokugwana government officially liberalized trade relationships. Not only that, but the leading power also "first opened the country to Western commerce and influence." In this order of ideas, the Japanese government encouraged and supported young students to continue and specialize their studies abroad and, for those remaining in the country, brought Western professors to teach them the secrets of mathematics, physics, logistics and economics."

Tags:Tokugwana, trade, merchant

Abstract
This paper provides an in-depth look at the Japanese economy before and after the collapse of the Tokyo stock-market which occurred at the start of the current recession. It shows how Japan was considered to be the perfect economy and idealized by the West with regard to its statistics on growth, unemployment and productivity. Causes of the collapse are analyzed. The writer presents many statistics about the current economic state and looks at the government's plans to boost the economy.

From the Paper
"The revisionists asserted that, in contrast to the open-market capitalism of the "Anglo-American" model, Japan practiced a unique form of state-directed insider capitalism. Under that model, close relationships among business executives, bankers, and government officials strongly influence economic outcomes. By strategically allocating capital through a tightly controlled banking system, they argued, Japan would drive foreign competitors out of sector after sector, leading eventually to world economic domination. (Thompson, 1997)

"Sooner or later, the United States must come to grips with the fact that Japan has become the leading industrial nation in the world. The Japanese have the longest life span. They have the highest employment, the highest literacy, and the smallest gap between rich and poor. Their manufacturing products have the highest quality."

Tags:stock, market, Toyko, collapse, recession, yen, buget, deficit, recession, Japan

Abstract
This paper examines how Japan has the second largest economy in the world with a high Domestic Product (GDP) and a very high standard of living. Japan?s foreign exchange reserves are the largest in the world ($203.22US billion in 1998) and Japan is the world's largest creditor. It analyzes the reasons for the downturn in its economy in the 1990s during which Japan found itself in 1997 in its worst recession since World War II. It examines the several significant structural adjustments that needed be made to the Japanese economy as recommended by economists in order to normalize its economy. It discusses issues such as the need for the banks to clean up bad debts and the steps corporate management had to take to deal with the effect of having to pay the world's highest labor costs, which resulted from the strong yen pushing up Japan's average wages to the highest in the world. It also looks at the effects of globalization on Japanese industry.

From the Paper
"The Japanese economy faces several challenges in its attempt to normalize its economy. Its history of government intervention is contrary to classical economic free-market theories that would argue the economy should be left unregulated so that it could correct itself. While Japanese government intervention may have been necessary in the post-war period, its artificial schemes may now hinder it progress. For example, Japan must control its costs to compete with global prices. Yet, the Japanese government continues to set the prices of services, in particular the prices of utility services such as the prices of electricity, communications services, and highway tolls. The government determines these prices by adding what is called reasonable profit margins onto costs."

Tags:free-market, globalozation, industry, yen

Abstract
This paper analyzes the social and economic plasticity of the Shibuya girls in this study of Japanese pop art fashion. The paper examines the growingly powerful Japanese economy, and shows how the trends toward more stereotypical fashion ideologies are now being geared toward a mass market consumer culture. The paper discusses how with girls attempting to appear as plastic and objectified as possible, the mass production aspect of the Shibuya clothing enterprise reveals some darker sides to the sexuality and collective socialization for Japanese women-especially those of teenagers.

Tags:jap, fashion, style