Incidentally, this growth rate is exactly the same as that recorded by China in the period starting in the early 1990s. However, the good times inevitably come to an end, sooner or later, for any country enjoying such high growth.
This is because some of the conditions that support high growth, especially the labor supply from rural areas to cities and the high rate of increase in labor force, will eventually reach their peak.4 Second is the medium-term time horizon. Although Japan’s high-growth period ended in the 1970s, its rate of economic growth continued to be much higher than in other developed countries.