Japan's Lost Decades

Japan’s Property Bubble: “The Lost Decades” (90s to Present)

Three decades after World War 2, the Japanese economy was once again a world super power. The Japanese dominated the global electronics industry, manufacturing a majority of the world’s consumer electronic products. As their economy grew, the government decided to deregulate financial markets. This meant that banks were given more power to choose whom to lend to and to determine what interest rate to lend at. With low interest rates, Japanese conglomerates borrowed recklessly to purchase real estate. The buying pushed property prices in Tokyo to increase by as much as 62% in 1987 (Takagi, 1989). At a point, Tokyo’s prime neighborhoods were 350 times more expensive than comparable properties in Manhattan (Colombo, 2012). With property prices increasing, conglomerates booked hefty profits and were able to borrow more money to invest into real estate.

By 1989, the government was alarmed by the ballooning property bubble so they tightened monetary policy, increasing interest rates by as much as 3% in a span of 3 months. Companies defaulted (due to higher interest payments); the stock market crashed; and property prices plunged. By 2004, real estate in Tokyo was only worth 10% of their 1990 peak (Barsky). Up to today, prices still haven’t recovered from their peak in 1991. The second photo above shows the US Fed's real estate price index for Japan.