Believing that the profundity of this topic will be revealed in the sessions today, I would rather like to present my personal reflections on Japan's economic policy management over the past two decades when we struggled to stabilize our economy. 2. Japan's success and failure  Let me begin with a brief sketch of what Japan's economy went through after World War II.
We began the post-war reconstruction by creating a uniquely Japanese system. It was built on a tight nexus of the social, political and economic apparatus, with top priority given to attaining high economic growth. Among the striking features of this system were political stability, strong bureaucracy, and lifetime employment.