John Redwood on a 'pioneering' Japan

Steady progress in growing per capita income

The case against Japanese shares is often made based on the slow rate of economic growth and the changed behaviour of the Japanese economy after the big boom and bust of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Since then, large budget deficits, a big build-up of state debt, endless monetary experiments, zero or negative interest rates and large infrastructure programmes have failed to generate inflation or faster growth. Navigating Japan's 'transition period' Japan stays as an outrider for the advanced economies, pioneering monetary and budgetary policies that look irresponsible yet fail to trigger inflation. The stockmarket remains well below the peaks it reached 40 years ago. The administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has sought to force the pace and to get inflation up from ve...