雅思阅读范文Whose lost decade

　　THE Japanese say they suffer from an economic disease called structural pessimism. Overseas too, there is a tendency to see Japan as a harbinger of all that is doomed in the economies of the euro zone and Americaeven though figures released on November 14th show its economy grew by an annualised 6% in the third quarter, rebounding quickly from the March tsunami and nuclear disaster.

　　Look dispassionately at Japans economic performance over the past ten years, though, and the second lost decade, if not the first, is a misnomer. Much of what tarnishes Japans image is the result of demographymore than half its population is over 45as well as its poor policy in dealing with it. Even so, most Japanese have grown richer over the decade.

　　In aggregate, Japans economy grew at half the pace of Americas between Yet if judged by growth in GDP per person over the same period, then Japan has outperformed America and the euro zone . In part this is because its population has shrunk whereas Americas population has increased.

　　Though growth in labour productivity fell slightly short of Americas from , total factor productivity, a measure of how a country uses capital and labour, grew faster, according to the Tokyo-based Asian Productivity Organisation. Japans unemployment rate is higher than in 2000, yet it remains about half the level of America and Europe .

　　Besides supposed stagnation, the two other curses of the Japanese economy are debt and deflation. Yet these also partly reflect demography and can be overstated. People often think of Japan as an indebted country. In fact, it is the worlds biggest creditor nation, boasting ￥253 trillion in net foreign assets.

　　雅思阅读范文：Whose lost decade?

　　To be sure, its government is a large debtor; its net debt as a share of GDP is one of the highest in the OECD. However, the public debt has been accrued not primarily through wasteful spending or bridges to nowhere, but because of ageing, says the IMF. Social-security expenditure doubled as a share of GDP between to pay rising pensions and health-care costs. Over the same period tax revenues have shrunk.

　　Falling tax revenues are a problem. The flip side, though, is that Japan has the lowest tax take of any country in the OECD, at just 17% of GDP. That gives it plenty of room to manoeuvre. Takatoshi Ito, an economist at the University of Tokyo, says increasing the consumption tax by 20 percentage points from its current 5%putting it at the level of a high-tax European countrywould raise ￥50 trillion and immediately wipe out Japans fiscal deficit.