Lessons from the Bursting of the Japanese Bubble

Much has been written lately about the parallels between the current U.S. banking crisis and the Japanese banking crisis of the 1990s. Many people have pointed to purported mistakes of Japanese policymakers in the wake of the bursting of the Japanese bubble. They have argued that these mistakes led to the "lost decade" in Japan, a period of stagnant GDP.

For those interested in learning more about what really happened in the 1990s in Japan, Harvard Business School Professor Diego Comin has an interesting new working paper that's worth reading. For more information and a link to the full PDF version of the paper, click here.