Learn the Lessons from Japan's Great Recession with New Macro Economics Guide

Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:00pm EDT
 
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DUBLIN, Ireland--(Business Wire)--
Research and Markets
(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/0924b0/the_holy_grail_of)
has announced the addition of the "The Holy Grail of Macro Economics:
Lessons from Japan's Great Recession" report to their offering.

   Japan's "Great Recession" lasted from approximately 1992 - 2007
and finally provided the economics profession with the necessary
background to understand what actually happened during the US
recession of the 1930s. The discoveries made, however, are so
far-reaching that a large portion of economics literature will have to
be modified to accommodate another half to the macro economic spectrum
of possibilities that conventional theorists have overlooked.

   In particular, Japan's Great Recession showed that when faced with
a massive fall in asset prices, companies typically jettison the
conventional goal of profit maximization and move to minimize debt in
order to restore their credit ratings. This shift in corporate
priority, however, has huge theoretical as well as practical
implications and opens up a whole new field of study. For example, the
new insight can explain fully the precise mechanism of prolonged
depression and liquidity trap which conventional economics - based on
corporate profit maximization - has so far failed to offer as a
convincing explanation.

   The author developed the idea of yin and yang business cycles
where the conventional world of profit maximization is the yang and
the world of balance sheet recession, where companies are minimizing
debt, is the yin. Once so divided, many varied theories developed in
macro economics since the 1930s can be nicely categorized into a
single comprehensive theory, i.e., the Holy Grail of macro economics

   The policy implication of this new discovery is immense in that
the conventional aversion to fiscal policy in favor of monetary policy
will have to be completely reversed when the economy is in the yin
phase.

   The theoretical implications are also immense in the sense that
the economics profession will no longer have to rely so much on
various rigidities to explain recessions that have become the standard
practice within the so-called New Keynesian economics of the last
twenty years.

   Key Topics Covered:

   What kind of recession has Japan been through?

   - Structural problems and banking sector issues cannot explain the
1990s recession

   - The bubble's collapse triggered a balance sheet recession

   - Government spending bolstered the economy

   - Debt minimization and monetary policy

   Characteristics of balance sheet recessions that should be kept in
mind during the recovery

   - Emerging from a balance sheet recession

   - Tax receipts during a balance sheet recession

   - Interest rates after a balance sheet recession

   - Proclaiming the need for more monetary policy easing only
demonstrates a lack of understanding of the recession

   The Great Depression was also a balance sheet recession

   - Why has economics overlooked the balance sheet recession?

   - The end of independent monetary policy

   - A balance sheet recession perspective of the Great Depression

   - There is more than one kind of recession

   Monetary, foreign exchange, and fiscal policy during a balance
sheet recession

   - The problem with unorthodox monetary accommodation

   - We must leave a healthy economy for the next generation

   Yin and yang economic cycles and the integration of macro
economics

   - Bubbles and balance sheet recessions are part of the economic
cycle

   - The mistake of applying yang policies during a yin cycle

   - What both Keynes and the monetarists have overlooked

   - Towards a unified economic theory

   The state of economic discussion in Japan

   - Appraisals of Krugman

   - Criticism of the definition of a balance sheet recession

   - Those with no direct knowledge of Japan should be ignored

   - Having experienced a bubble, Japan must show the world how to
respond to a balance sheet recession

   Challenges awaiting the world economy

   - Changes in the global economic environment

   - The US is also awash in money

   - Oil prices and US policy

   - The current global economic environment

   Appendix: Neoclassical economics has not given enough thought to
why money exists

   - Money as a medium of exchange

   - Economic welfare implications of the use of money

   - Conclusions

   For more information visit
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/0924b0/the_holy_grail_of

Research and Markets
Laura Wood, Senior Manager
Fax from USA: 646-607-1907
Fax from rest of the world: +353-1-481-1716
press@researchandmarkets.com

Copyright Business Wire 2008

 

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