Nominal prices may have stagnated in Japan for the larger part of the past few decades. But, to deem Japan uneventful is a severe understatement. The post-war boom sent real estate prices spiralling. Mortgages became intergenerational, as parents committed their offspring to very, very long-term loans — a phenomenon made even more tragic when the bubble burst in the 1980s and decades of economic underperformance ensued.
For years, many things seemingly stood still in Japan. My last visit pre-Covid was in late 2019, and the airport limousine from Narita Airport to downtown Tokyo was priced at JPY3,000 — unchanged from what I recalled paying during my first trip back in 1997.
The same ticket now costs JPY3,200. Although the 1997 price was a princely equivalent of $50 then, it is now a manageable $31, thanks to gain of the Singapore dollar vs the yen. In purchasing power terms, the same ticket is probably the equivalent of $15 back in 1997.
