11-09-2005, 04:27 PM
1. Introduction
The Japanese society is known around the world for accomplishing astounding economic growth in the post-war era and at the same time realizing a commendable degree of equality in the distribution of income. Sustaining low rates of unemployment in the presence of business cycles poses a real wonder for macroeconomists. Overall achievement in human development measures reported in the existing issues of the Human Development Report is also very high. Yet there seem to be many problems that remain to be resolved. Clearly there is a need for a well-balanced evaluation of the achievements of the four decades.
The organization of this report is as follows. Sections 2, 3 and 4 review concisely the basic accomplishments in the arena of economic growth, income distribution, poverty abatement, and conditions of human development, respectively, during the period 1955-1993. Since most researchers agree that the postwar Japanese economic development started from 1955, in which year the economy restored the pre-war peak level of production, we shall take 1955 to be the beginning year of this study.
Section 5 then focuses on the rapid growth period of 1955-73, in which income equalization, poverty reduction and improvement in human development conditions occurred simultaneously with growth. It also explains why rapid growth and income equalization went hand in hand and in what way the latter might have caused the former.
Section 6 characterizes the development in the size and composition of the government expenditure during the rapid growth era and the post-rapid growth era while also explains the mechanism by which the government might have promoted growth and equalization together. It also shows using a regression analysis that the government expenditure on hygiene has had a positive effect on reducing the infant and child mortality rates which was independent of the effect of the growth of per capita household income. That is, there were indeed some areas in which the government made a direct contribution in improving the human development conditions.
Section 7 concludes by leaving qualifications to the economic policies with regard to growth, income distribution and human development and by indicating the problems that still lie ahead to be resolved in this country from the perspective of human development.
http://hdr.undp.org/docs/publications/ocat...papers/oc23.htm
The Japanese society is known around the world for accomplishing astounding economic growth in the post-war era and at the same time realizing a commendable degree of equality in the distribution of income. Sustaining low rates of unemployment in the presence of business cycles poses a real wonder for macroeconomists. Overall achievement in human development measures reported in the existing issues of the Human Development Report is also very high. Yet there seem to be many problems that remain to be resolved. Clearly there is a need for a well-balanced evaluation of the achievements of the four decades.
The organization of this report is as follows. Sections 2, 3 and 4 review concisely the basic accomplishments in the arena of economic growth, income distribution, poverty abatement, and conditions of human development, respectively, during the period 1955-1993. Since most researchers agree that the postwar Japanese economic development started from 1955, in which year the economy restored the pre-war peak level of production, we shall take 1955 to be the beginning year of this study.
Section 5 then focuses on the rapid growth period of 1955-73, in which income equalization, poverty reduction and improvement in human development conditions occurred simultaneously with growth. It also explains why rapid growth and income equalization went hand in hand and in what way the latter might have caused the former.
Section 6 characterizes the development in the size and composition of the government expenditure during the rapid growth era and the post-rapid growth era while also explains the mechanism by which the government might have promoted growth and equalization together. It also shows using a regression analysis that the government expenditure on hygiene has had a positive effect on reducing the infant and child mortality rates which was independent of the effect of the growth of per capita household income. That is, there were indeed some areas in which the government made a direct contribution in improving the human development conditions.
Section 7 concludes by leaving qualifications to the economic policies with regard to growth, income distribution and human development and by indicating the problems that still lie ahead to be resolved in this country from the perspective of human development.
http://hdr.undp.org/docs/publications/ocat...papers/oc23.htm