Sunday February 12, 2012

Welcome   |   Register   |   Log in

Event Summary

As the United States and the world seek a strategy to cope with the financial crisis and recession, Japan's experience can provide useful lessons. Measures that Japan took—and did not take— during its "Lost Decade" of the 1990s can inform the decisions that policy-makers make today.

Event Information

When

Thursday, March 26, 2009
9:00 AM to 12:20 PM

Where

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map

Event Materials

Contact: Brookings Office of Communications

Email: events@brookings.edu

Phone: 202.797.6105

On March 26, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies and the Initiative on Business and Public Policy at Brookings, in collaboration with Nikkei and the Japan Center for Economic Research, hosted leading Japanese and American experts to discuss Japan's experience and its lessons for the United States. Heizo Takenaka, Japan's former minister of internal affairs and communications and minister of state for privatization of the postal services—positions in which he led efforts to resolve Japan’s banking crisis and privatize the world's largest savings bank—provided opening remarks.

at Tokyo Club Meeting    Hon. Denton Darrington at Juvenile Justice event
Heizo Takenaka giving opening remarks. Douglas Elliott speaking at event.

Transcript

HEIZO TAKENAKA: So today, I'm given a very important and interesting topic to speak about -- that is Japan's Lost Decade: Lessons for the United States. Recently, we hear a lot of bad news about Japan -- especially Japan's politics. Japanese political administration is very unstable. In the past 20 years, we had 14 prime ministers actually. And maybe in several months we'll have a new one I'm afraid.

However, eight years ago we had a very special Prime Minister named Junichiro Koizumi. Under his leadership, we terminated -- stopped Lost Decade. As was mentioned by Richard, I worked in the government from 2001 to 2006 to support former Prime Minister Koizumi. Koizumi was a very special and unique prime minister in the history of Japan's politics. How unique and how special he was. First, he nominated me as a minister. He's very unique actually. Second, he continuously supported my policy for more than five years, though many influential politicians were against my policy. He's very special in that sense. Anyway, owing the leadership by Prime Minister Koizumi, the Japanese economy has come back -- financial crisis was over.

Participants

Opening Remarks

Heizo Takenaka

Former Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan
Minister of State for Privatization of Postal Services, Japan

Panel Discussion

Junichi Arai

Chairman, Japan Center for Economic Research

Barry P. Bosworth

Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, Global Economy and Development

Naoaki Okabe

Senior Executive Editor, Nikkei Inc.

Adam Posen

Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics

Alice M. Rivlin

Senior Fellow, Economic Studies

Yoichi Takita

Senior Staff Writer, Nikkei America

Remarks on the Policy Response to the Crisis

Douglas J. Elliott

Fellow, Economic Studies, Initiative on Business and Public Policy


My Portfolio

My New Content

View suggested content based on items you have saved to your Portfolio.
Log in or register now