""This is an excellent, comprehensive, balanced, readable, up-to-date policy-oriented analysis of the Japanese economy and its fundamental challenges by an outstanding expert. Given Japan’s declining and aging population and labour force, Randall Jones provides sensible, clear-cut, specific policy recommendations to improve productivity and well-being through needed reforms."" Hugh Patrick, R. D. Calkins Professor of International Business Emeritus, Columbia Business School ""Randall Jones offers the best economic survey on Japan, full of deep policy insights. Reviewing developments from the bubble burst in 1990 to the current COVID-19 crisis, his book provides key challenges and solutions for Japan as a frontier country with a policy agenda for an ageing society with a shrinking population."" Kazumasa Iwata, President of the Japan Center for Economic Research, Professor Emeritus Tokyo University ""A tour de force! Comprehensive comparisons of Japan with many nations, across many issues, with reliable data. This is the new book of record for Japan’s achievements and missteps in labour, tax, technology, industrial policy, demographics, education, and other policy fields. A cornerstone work for scholars, policymakers, and investors."" Robert Alan Feldman, Professor, Tokyo University of Science