Japan used to be the world’s economic success story. Now, after a decades-long slide, its own government officials are saying that Japan no longer has a “first-class economy.” According to this article, its woes include too much government regulation, declining productivity, stagnant innovation, and. . .
the petering out of the population. Japan has the world’s highest proportion of elderly people and the lowest proportion of children.By 2050, population decline will have reduced economic growth to zero, according to the Japan Center for Economic Research. Seventy percent of the country’s labor force will have disappeared.
You know something else? Some business educators, using their old notes and research from twenty years ago–are STILL hailing Japanese management techniques and saying that we need to emulate them.