Description

An economy operates as a coherent whole. To understand any country, including Japan, it is necessary to see how all the pieces and aspects of that economy fit together. It is therefore foolish to think of the subject as divided into discernibly independent topics. Students should strive to understand the way in which the different parts of the economy interact. Though the economic framework we use to analyse the Japanese economy is a general one, there would be no real reason to study the Japanese economy if it was substantially the same as any other industrialised nation. The institutions that help define the Japanese nation and the Japanese economy are the result of historical decisions and natural constraints. Therefore, the only way to understand the current problems of Japan is to understand something about part Japanese development.