EconAir

  INTRODUCTION   Japan gets special consideration because it is further along the demographics declining population curve than any other large country. Unless there are major changes in healthcare technology, immigration, public policy, and birth rates, most industrialized countries will follow Japan down the path of declining and aging populations, and smaller labor forces.    PROJECTIONS   Japan’s current (2024) population is around 122 million people. This is the 15 th  year of population decline, down from a high of 128 million. The yearly decreases so far have been small, both in numbers and as a percent of the total. This is expected to continue until 2030. Then population decreases are expected to accelerate to a population of 104 million in 2050 and 87 million in 2070. At the end of the century, Japan’s population is projected to be 60-65 million people, about half its current size.   The high dependency ratio (the number of elderly divided by ...

“The age is running mad after innovation.” Samuel Johnson In the Beginning Why study economic theory and analysis, read economic history, and make economic forecasts? The short answer is because of the Industrial Revolution and the attempt to understand its dynamics and structure. Economics is an attempt to understand the material world we live in, the environment created by the Industrial Revolution. THE BEGINNING OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION The Industrial Revolution began in England in the late 1700s. It then spread to America  and western European countries. This post will summarize its origins in England and describe the early decades of the Industrial Revolution in America. The Industrial Revolution was a radical break in history. But in England, many of the preconditions were already in place, as can be seen by the history of the Wedgwood company. The revolutionary generation that first adopted steam engines saw t...