Introduction It is a great privilege to be invited to speak at Columbia Business School today. I was told that the Center on Japanese Economy and Business (CJEB), which is kindly hosting this conference, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. The CJEB has long played a pivotal role in promoting a better understanding of the Japanese economy and U.S.-Japan economic relations.
The extra productive capacity created by those investments, together with a recovery whose durability in the early stages was not assured, may have implied little need for further investment, at least until relatively recently.