So there will be bubbles, but I have little doubt that they will have a higher growth rate than the west for quite a long time. Once they become fully industrialized, probably not.
We can tell the same story about India, BTW. The last deca might have been terrible for the EU and the US, but it has been amazing for Asia. It's only not been quite as good for Africa because so many countries the hare horrible governments.
[1] http://priceonomics.com/surveying-the-ghost-cities-of-china/
I'm genuinely not being sarcastic, I wouldn't have the faintest idea where to start looking for an answer to that question otherwise.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan)
It's also interesting to review old films and media from the late eighties (Gung Ho, and Die Hard). It's hard to comprehend if you didn't live through it, but there was a massive level of anxiety in the US that Japanese business culture and management prowess was going to be impossible for the US to overcome, and that th US was in decline.
The Asset bubble in Japan was so insane that at one point the nominal value of the Imperial Palace was equal to the value of all property in the state of California. Aother good Wikipedia article to read is this one:
Certainly there was also significant attention to some of the more specific processes and practices associated with Japanese manufacturing (and far less to US manufacturing) at the time, which have been largely proven out. (And are arguably being reflected in a lot of modern DevOps software practices.) However, a lot of notable economists and others were also calling for much more systematic cooperation/planning between government and companies (especially manufacturers). Sematech was an example from the semiconductor industry.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_International_Trad...
From 1990 to 2013 Japan's per capita income actually doubled, translating into over 3% growth per annum.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp-growth
Japan has been suffering from low inflation and at times deflation. This means that debts do not shrink with inflation. I think the stockmarket and property markets have been pretty flat too over the period. What growth there has been has been assisted by "extraordinary" (well they were before 2008) monetary measures and growth in government debt to 230% of GDP.
> Why aren't they getting married?
> There are both cultural and economic barriers. In Japanese tradition, marriage was more about duty than romantic love. Arranged marriages were the norm well into the 1970s, and even into the 1990s most marriages were facilitated by "go-betweens," often the grooms' bosses. Left to their own devices, Japanese men aren't sure how to find wives — and many are shying away from the hunt, because they simply can't afford it. Wages have stagnated since the 1990s, while housing prices have shot up. A young Japanese man has good reason to believe that his standard of living would drop immensely if he had to house and support a wife and children — especially considering that his wife likely wouldn't be working.
In the west we have this opinion that an economy should under go the maximum amount of growth at all times and so from that perspective Japan looks like a basket case and yet they have a good standard of living, an excellent life expectancy and by most measures are a successful country.
That said much of what happened in Japan is worth study in the greater world, the suppression of wages and the liquidity trap (their debt is 240% of GDP) have analogues in the western world.
The main reason for this belief is that we have a distorted view of economy. For economists, business growth is the only thing that matters in a society. On the other hand, 99% of the people in a country don't really care about economic growth (above some basic comfort level of development, it must be said). This happens because most people live of wages, and wage growth is slow and sometimes non-existent (as presently in the US).
The standard growth oriented view of economy is important only for investors (people making money in the stock market and bond market), and business owners. Normal people will live perfect fine lives as long as the economy is not imploding.
It is politicians and developers who put a value-judgement on growth - specifically GDP growth. And they are perfectly rational in doing so. In most jurisdictions the developers hire the politicians and so they adopt that value-judgement. The other 99.9% of the constituents are largely ignored on this topic.
- When a country is completely modernized its growth tends to plateau; no good investments left (in say infrastructure, health, education and so).
- The Japanese Yen got too strong. Japan got stiffed at the plaza accord. After the 2nd world war it took 300 JPY to buy one USD. Today it hovers around 100.
- Japan's skewed demographics. Too many elderly. Too few young. Little immigration.
- Japan's conservatism. I.e big consumer electronics giants unable to transition into software companies.
- Too much debt. Economy caught in a debt deflation / liquidity trap.
- Competition from Taiwan, South Korea, China.
- The big bubble was never allowed to pop and clear. Leaving zombie companies, slowly falling asset prices, bad debt for many decades ...
http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Sun-Michael-Crichton/dp/0099233...
My current thinking is that capital outflows will increase the worse the situation gets until China cracks down in a major way, or they are tapped dry.
But China is no where near where Japan was in 1990.
You can see that if you compare GDP pr. capita figures.
We've seen this movie before... Back in the 80s it was called "Japan". Everyone was making money, Japanese investors were spending billions on real estate, brands, etc. The ending didn't go so well.