Why Japan Poor?

Otake, professor of Osaka University, has a nice post in his blog, "Is Japan poorer?". He talked about this issue by raising the post of another guy, Iwamoto, professor of Tokyo University.

According to it, the per capita GDP of Japan goes down from 3rd to 18th in the world ranking. Is Japan really poorer? Iwamoto points out that it doesn't go so poorer in terms of PPP(Purchasing Power Parity): It has been just overevaluated with yen highly appreciated.

However, the per capita consumption of Japan has not ever reached the average level of per capita consumption of OECD countries.　Otake said that it was so serious because Japanese people were enjoying the lower level of consumption than that of OECD countries.

Why is the consumption of Japan so low?
Japanese should enjoy more consumption, just like American people.

To tell the truth, such kind of question has been raised since Japan enjoyed the bubble economy in the late 1980s: Japanese just save the money they earned by trading the stocks, and they don't spend it.

This somewhat peculiar behavior should be an indirect cause of the burst of the bubble economy in Japan. And then we might say that people's desire for money is the main cause of the low consumption in Japan. Japanese should like enjoying more goods and services in order for the economy to enjoy booming up.

日本語原文
日本は貧しくなっているのか

日本の一人あたりGDPは２０００年の３位から１８位に急激に下がった。本当にこれだけ急に日本は貧しくなったのだろうか。東京大学の岩本康志教授に よれば、購買力平価でみるとそれほど急激に下がっているわけではないと言う。むしろ、為替レートでかつて日本が過大評価されていただけだというのが真相ら しい。もっと深刻なのは、国民の本当の豊かさを表す購買力平価でみた日本の一人当たり消費が、一度もOECD平均を超えたことがないことだ。日本は今でも OECDの平均以下の生活水準だということを私たちは自覚すべきかもしれない。逆にいえば、もっと工夫をすれば私たちの消費水準を上げることができるとい うことだ。