The U.S. economy has had 25 years of some of the strongest, smoothest growth in its history--economists have even named it: "the Great Moderation." So why have so many of us arrived at the new century with a gnawing sense that events are moving against our families and ourselves? Drawing on...

In this paper, I analyze the causes of the prolonged slowdown of the Japanese economy in the 1990s and find that the stagnation of investment, especially private fixed investment, was the primary culprit. I then investigate the causes of the stagnation of household consumption during the 1990s...