Will Abe lead on the consumption tax?

On Friday, Prime Minister Abe Shinzō headed off  (jp) to the mountains in Yamanashi prefecture for an eleven-day summer holiday. …

The Japanese public's ingrained distrust of investor capitalism

In the last part of this series of posts reviewing Japanese public opinion about economic policy during the "lost decades,&q…

The Japanese public's enduring anxiety about social security

Even as the Japanese people confronted slow growth and considered whether the longstanding institutions of Japanese capitalism …

The Japanese public weighs structural reform

In my last post I discussed public opinion regarding fiscal stimulus, fiscal reconstruction, and the role of the state. In this …

Fiscal policy in the eyes of the Japanese public

It increasingly seems that if Abe Shinzō is going to remain in office, he will need to retain the approval of the Japanese public…

Waiting for trickle down

Another day, another round of statistics to parse in an attempt to determine whether or not Abenomics is working. The latest are …

How long will the Japanese people support Abe (and Abenomics)?

The most remarkable contrast between Abe Shinzō's tumultuous first term as prime minister in 2006-2007 and his current term i…

Japan the model?

Joseph Stiglitz has a piece at the New York Times  praising Abenomics as "a huge step in the right direction." At the s…