Japan's postwar economy C.1

ORIGINALLY the brief study that follows was intended merely to be an updating of my Economic Problems of Free Japan (Princeton, Center of International Studies, 1952). It was for this purpose that I was favored by a Rockefeller Foundation grant. But so much new material came to light, so many new trends and forces were appar ent, that it seemed wiser to begin anew and write from the vantage point of 1957-58 rather than try to recast and redirect old thoughts and observations of 1950-51.

To avoid misunderstanding with a possible reviewer or two, I should hasten to state what this study is not. It is not a definitive study of the postwar decade, it is not an exhaustive study of the economy of Japan, it is not a detailed review and evaluation of the Occupation. It is simply a brief analysis of the nature of, and factors responsible for, Japan's economic recovery and of the economic problems which now confront Japan. It is not easy to survey a com plex economy in a compact review. Of necessity some aspects and phases of the economy had to be omitted, others had to be treated more concisely than I preferred. But this was above all to be a short book designed primarily for busy American readers who had neither the patience nor the inclination to delve into anything as formidable as my earlier Japan's Economy in War and Reconstruc tion (University of Minnesota Press, 1949). That, indeed, ends where this, in point of time, begins.