Japan

A service economy, backed by a solid industrial base

Driven by a spectacular post-war industrial recovery — the "economic miracle" of 1955–1990 — the Japanese economy remains a leading manufacturing and technology power in cars, electronics and robotics. Since the speculative bubble burst in 1991, however, it has gone through several "lost decades" of sluggish growth and persistent deflation, before a return to more conventional inflation in the 2020s along with a marked weakening of the yen. It has to cope with the most pronounced ageing of all the major economies and one of the highest public debts in the world, partly financed by abundant domestic savings.