Europe's sclerotic growth and political dysfunction inspire frequent comparisons with Japan's lost decade from the mid-1990s.
The region's bout of misery this year — Germany's industrial slump and the struggle to fix its banks, Italy's inability to reform, the apparent defeat of central bankers seeking to wean the euro area off stimulus — may seem to make perpetual malaise look inevitable.
The eurozone's economy is similar in important ways to its Asian counterpart two decades ago: Interest rates at or below zero, the mountains of debt and nonperforming loans, populations transitioning from an aging society to an aged one.