1	If you had three wishes, what would you change about the Japanese economy?
	R. Jerram	Fix the banks, massive money funded tax cut, death penalty for corruption
	P. Morgan	Improve corporate governance by reducing cross shareholdings dramatically, expand fiscal policy, dramatically reduce regulations
	C. Walker	1) LDP and political dynamics, 2) the BOJ's stubbornness and 3) openness to foreign ideas.
	J. Koll	1) merge bad banks with postal bank / bad insurance companies with Kampo, 2) raise BoJ rates, 3) establish Japan-China free trade zone
	P. Sheard	1) remove, in a credible fashion, the government guarantee on large-lot bank deposits, and repeal the legislation (passed in December of last year) introducing a permanent and unlimited guarantee on zero-interest rate deposits even after the guarantee on large-lot demand deposits is scheduled to expire in March 2005; 2) inject sufficient Deposit Insurance Corporation funds into the banking system to allow banks to mark their balance sheets to market without triggering a collapse of the banking system; 3) have the Bank of Japan implement an inflation-targeting regime (initially 2-4% range, with mid-point targeted, but later 1-3% range, with mid-point targeted) to be achieved within two years.
	R. Koo	1) Force people to use land more efficiently so that better and cheaper housing can be made available in the cities. 2) Increase holidays massively so that people can have time to enjoy their income. 3) Increase fiscal stimulus to fill the gap between household savings and corporate until the majority of companies are finished with their balance sheet repair.
2	Best books on Japan?
	R. Jerram	Edward J. Lincoln, Arthritic Japan
	P. Morgan	Richard Katz, The System that Soured; Michael Porter, Can Japan Compete?; Karel van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power
	C. Walker	Karl van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power
	J. Koll	Chomin Nakae, Discourse by Three Drunkards on Government; Yamazaki Masakazu, Individualism and the Japanese; Maurice Pinguet, La Mort Voluntaire au Japon ; Brian Reading, Japan, the Coming Collapse ; Aikra Iriye, Power and Culture; Sakakibara Eisuke, Beyond Capitalism
	P. Sheard	John Downer, Embracing Defeat (informative, scholarly and very well written). Takeo Hoshi and Anil Kashyap, Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan (a good history of micro finance).
	R. Koo	Shosaku Murayama, Mekara Urokono Nihon Keizai ron; Richard Koo, Balance Sheet Recession
	K. Okue	Peter Tasker, Dragon Dance (not realistic, but interesting)
3	Worst books on Japan?
	R. Jerram	Recently, Policy Trap by Taggart Murphy and Mikuni. At $39 more like money trap than policy trap.
	P. Morgan	Eamonn Fingleton, Blindside
	C. Walker	Too numerous to mention.
	R. Koo	Too many to list
	K. Okue	"Economic White Paper" (Keizai Hakusho), some of books written by economists (ignoring the reality)
4	And finally: Who studied less at LSE, Mick Jagger or PM Koizumi?
	R. Jerram	Well one is a dynamic and radical leader, transforming society and the other is a loser with a dumb haircut. Maybe Mick is just smarter.
	P. Morgan	Koizumi certainly studied less economics
	C. Walker	I suppose they both hit the books, judging from lifetime income (probably have to give Mick the edge on this one, though)
	J. Koll	Same difference - both are awesome at managing own brand, but still can't get no satisfaction…
	R. Koo	Balance Sheet Recession is a totally new concept and is not taught in any school.

 

Section IV 　 Soapbox: A final forum
R. Jerram	I am fed up of reading "best policy to fix the problems" stories/analysis. There are plenty of things that might work, with the recipe depending on your empirical research and your ideological preferences. But after a decade, I think we can be comfortable with the idea that doing nothing is probably not going to fix it. So I think the interesting questions are political economy ones such as why there is such "momentum behind the intertia" (as one of my ex-colleagues once put it).
P. Morgan	Poor corporate governance probably explains mostly why capital allocation in Japan is so poor. Ultimately, the only way to solve this is to allow foreign fund managers to control enough stocks to be able to mount successful hostile takeover attempts. Only this will concentrate the minds of Japanese managers on capital returns. My modest proposal is for the government to buy all stocks that banks currently hold, and then allow foreign (or foreign-like) managers to manage them in the interests of shareholders.
C. Walker	It's easy to preach, and tough to implement effective policies. Nevertheless, I'd still have to say that the country's problems are more political than economic. There's no great secret about how to fix a dysfunctional banking sector - plenty of countries have done it. Monetary policy is harder, but by almost any standard, it seems pretty clear that the BOJ should ease much more dramatically. In case after case, the political system precludes solutions that would eventually make everyone better off, and defers instead to small but well-focused interest groups. Because that is extremely unlikely to change in the near future, we as economists need to look at economic forces operating independently of the government, rather than engage in the generally fruitless exercise of working out what we think the government ought to do.
J. Koll	By 2003, Japan is stuck in a Buddhist truth-loop - All action leads to suffering. The good news is that one should never underestimate the ability and willingness of the Japanese people to suffer together. That's why Japan's model cannot be applied to other countries/economies. The bad news is that one should never underestimate the ability and willingness of the Japanese elite to impose more suffering. That's why Japan remains highly relevant.

Source: JapanReview.net 2003 Economist Poll