Institut français de recherche sur le Japon à la Maison franco-japonaise (Umifre 19, MEAE-CNRS)

Five years on, Abenomics has delivered mixed results, with a pickup of GDP growth and a continued decline of the unemployment rate, but also with sluggish inflation and a modest increase of corporate investment. While this outcome is sometimes blamed on corporate cash hoarding and banks’ caution in lending, one area where blame shifting cannot occur is the regulatory area, arguably fully under the control of the government. One initial ambition of Abenomics was to raise Japan's position in the Doing Business survey of the World Bank from 15th to 3d but, instead, Japan slipped to the 33th position in the most recent survey. The ambition of this presentation is twofold: to document why Abenomics failed to reform significantly the regulatory environment; to explore why it matters for growth and to what extend stronger regulatory reforms could help raise Japan's potential growth.


Presentation of the presenter


Brieuc Monfort, Ph.D. in economics, is associate professor in the Department of French Studies at Sophia University in Tokyo and associate researcher at the Center for Advanced French-Japanese Studies (CEAFJP) at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris). He is also a fellow at the European Institute at Sophia University. He previously worked for the International Monetary Fund in Washington and at the French Ministry of Finance in Paris and in Tokyo. His current research is part of the INCAS project (Understanding institutional change in Asia: a comparative perspective with Europe).


Presentation of the discussants


Sébastien Lechevalier is an Economist and a Professor at the School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS, Paris), where he specialises in Japanese economy, labor economics and Asian capitalisms. He is also founder and president of the Fondation France-Japon de l’EHESS (FFJ). He has been visiting Professor at Tokyo University, Kyoto University, Hitotsubashi University, Waseda University and Doshisha University. His latest publications include: “Lessons from the Japanese experience. Towards an alternative economic policy?”, ENS Editions 2016), “Abenomics: has it worked? Will it ultimately fail?” (Japan Forum, 2017) and “Firm-Level Labor Demand for and Macroeconomic Increases in Non-Regular Workers in Japan” (Japan & The World Economy, 2018). His book, The Great Transformation of Japanese Capitalism (Routledge, 2014), was published in Japanese 『日本資本主義の大転換』 by Iwanami Shoten.

Philippe MESMER : Graduated in History and having a master degree in Journalism, Philippe Mesmer has been living in Japan for 17 years. Since 2005, he is working as correspondent for the French newspaper Le Monde and for the French newsmagazine L’Express, covering both Korea(s) and Japan.