Accessibility links
Japan's Lost Decade is a cautionary tale about the L-shaped recession : The Indicator from Planet Money Not all recessions are created equal. Some look like Vs, while others look like Ks. But the scariest one of all is the L-shaped recession. Travel back to Japan's "Lost Decade" with us to understand why.

The Indicator from Planet Money

What Japan's "Lost Decade" teaches us about recessions

What Japan's Lost Decade teaches us about recessions

Listen · 9:56
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1116809917/1116863501" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
TOKYO, JAPAN: A woman looks at an electronic stock price board in downtown Tokyo, 29 March 2001. Share prices plunged 5.0 percent to post their biggest fall in nearly a year as investors dumped hi-tech issues following a sharp drop on Wall Street, brokers said. AFP PHOTO/Kazuhiro NOGI (Photo credit should read KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP via Getty Images)
Enlarge this image
KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP via Getty Images
TOKYO, JAPAN: A woman looks at an electronic stock price board in downtown Tokyo, 29 March 2001. Share prices plunged 5.0 percent to post their biggest fall in nearly a year as investors dumped hi-tech issues following a sharp drop on Wall Street, brokers said. AFP PHOTO/Kazuhiro NOGI (Photo credit should read KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP via Getty Images)
KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP via Getty Images

There's an ongoing debate over whether a recession is coming. But what type of recession should we really be worrying about? V-shaped ones are relatively short-lived, but the L-shaped ones? That's when we sound the alarm.

Today we're traveling back to 1990s Japan – an era infamously termed the "Lost Decade" for its slow growth and falling prices – to learn about the lasting scars of recessions shaped, well, not so well.

Music by Drop Electric. Find us: Twitter / Facebook / Newsletter.

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, PocketCasts and NPR One.