60 percent in the United States. Japanese public consumption accounts for 8.7 percent of GDP, compared to about 17 percent in the United States, while investment in Japan accounts for approximately 29 percent of GDP, compared to about 17 percent in the United States. Exports account for approximately 11.3 percent of Japan's GDP, compared to about six-percent in the United States (World Bank, 2005). Japan, thus, is far less prone to consume than is the United States.
Conventional western economic wisdom holds that the "economic system exists to serve the wants of consumers à . Business managers à are driven to do consumers' bidding not by benevolence but by the search for profits in a competitive marketplace. To serve their stockholders, they must serve the public by innovating and holding down costs" (Blinder, 1990, p. 21).
In Japan, however, priority derives to the producer, not to the consumer (Ito, 1993). Further, profits are not sought primarily for stockholders, but rather to serv
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