Lost Decade

A period in Japanese history in which economic growth was virtually flat due to the bursting of an asset bubble. "The Lost Decade" is the term coined to describe the period from 1991-2001, in which the Japanese economy grew extremely slowly despite extremely low interest rates.

The Lost Decade was the result of the Japanese asset-price bubble of the 1980s coming to a halt. Following years of cheap and easily available credit for Japanese investors, the Bank of Japan increased interest rates sharply to curb inflation, leading to both a credit crisis and a crash in the equity markets.