The reasons for the low growth must lie elsewhere, and I believe that it must be the critical changes that occurred during this period – namely, the decrease in the working-age population, which peaked in 1995, and the rise of emerging countries as rival producers of manufactured goods.
B.  Overcoming low growth and deflation  I have already pointed to the gradual loss of the favorable environment as the cause of the downward trend in the growth potential of the Japanese economy since the end of the highgrowth period.