Econometric models of the Japanese economy

摘要

This paper traces the history of Japan's macroeconometric model-building. The history has gone through three stages -- learning, practice, and maturity. World War II left Japan intellectually much behind the West. The economics profession was no exception. It had to learn Keynesian macroeconomic theory and econometrics almost from scratch. Efforts at model-building started in the mid-1950s. The learning stage ran into the early 1960s. Then, in 1964, the Japanese government inducted young econometricians for help to its national plan-making. Short-term, medium-term, and long-term models provided the base for econometric predictions in the national plan. Having gained enough on-the-job experiences in the stage of practice, Japanese econometricians embarked upon building a model after another in the 1970s. The paper takes an inventory of some 40 macroeconometric models which have been and are still currently active in Japan.