LONDON -- "Economic reform" has been the banner slogan of Japanese governments for the last 10 years, and the new government promises more of it.
For Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, it is not quite the strident claim to fearless determination that it was for his predecessor, but there is no doubt about the general direction of economic institutional change. Abe's chief Cabinet secretary is a dedicated neoliberal, and the appointment of renowned market fundamentalists as academic members of his Economic Council is a clear sign of which way some of the long-standing controversial issues are likely to be resolved. Expect tax reforms to make it easier for foreign firms to take over Japanese firms, for instance.
What has it all amounted to, these 10 years of deregulation, privatization, intensification of competition, rethinking welfare, flexibility in labor markets, etc.? "Trying hard, but could do better" -- the standard patronizing judgment of the Wall Street Journal or The Economist -- greatly understates the degree to which the Japanese economy has in fact changed since 1990.