In last month’s article, I promised to explain the actions that Japan took in an attempt to recover from the economic crisis of the Lost Decades. Japan tried several different economic policies in an attempt to recover the economy. The truth is, though, Japan’s economy has not really fully recovered to its heights of the 1980s, and economists have tried to explain several reasons for this. I will first give a very brief overview of the economic policies that took place in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.

Japan's late-1980s and 1990s economic bubble led to one of the worst economic downturns in history. Before delving into this topic, it is important to define what an economic bubble is. According to the NASDAQ glossary, an economic bubble is “a market phenomenon characterized by surges in asset prices to levels significantly above the fundamental value of that asset.

The history of the modern stock market dates back to the Netherlands in 1602, when the Hendrick de Keyser Exchange was formed in Amsterdam. Today, we hear a lot about the stock market in the headlines of the daily news. It is a major part of the U.S. and global economy today.