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Japan’s Potential Output and Productivity Growth

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Part of the book series: Procyclicality of Financial Systems in Asia ((IMF))

Abstract

Japan’s economic re-awakening over the past five years raises the question of whether the country’s potential output growth rate may now be higher. Structural adjustments to the imbalances of the “bubble” years have strengthened fundamentals. At the same time, an aging population complicates the challenge of ensuring strong self-sustaining growth. With Japan’s birth rate well below the population’s replacement rate, the working-age population in fact has been contracting since 2000, and the elderly dependency ratio (the share in the working-age population of people at least 65 years old) is now the highest among industrial countries. With a declining labor force, per capita income growth will depend critically on higher productivity.1

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Authors

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Daniel A. Citrin Alessandro Zanello

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© 2008 International Monetary Fund

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N’Diaye, P. (2008). Japan’s Potential Output and Productivity Growth. In: Citrin, D.A., Zanello, A. (eds) Japan’s Economic Revival. Procyclicality of Financial Systems in Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137001603_2

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