PARIS — Forget what you have heard about the hardworking Japanese salaryman: Since the early 1990s, the Japanese have slackened their work habits.
Indeed, Tokyo University economist Fumio Hayashi has demonstrated that the main reason behind Japan's nearly two decades of stagnation has been the decrease in the quantity of work performed by the Japanese.
The government itself has led the way here, starting with its decision to close public administration buildings on Saturdays. Japan's banks followed suit. From 1988 to 1993, the legal working week fell 10 percent, from 44 hours to 40. This, as much as anything, helped to bring Japan's long-running post-World War II economic "miracle" to its knees.