Babaru Keizai

Babaru Keizai, in Japanese, refers to 'Bubble Economy'. It points to the period before the sudden slowdown experienced in Japan in the early 90's. 1980's were characterized by huge investments in the real estate sector and the stock markets, to the extent that organizations in the manufacturing domain preferred to issue debentures and invest the money in stock markets in place of manufacturing. This kind of investment was referred to as 'Zaitech'. A large portion of these debentures were sold abroad. 

Prices in real estate and stock markets drove up the inflation rate in Japan and liquidity decreased considerably in the late 1980's as compared to the start of the decade. Individuals invested their savings while corporations and their pension funds were investing their surplus funds in stock markets; banks were lending for these speculative investments in real estate and stocks.

Which book should you read for economics?

I am often asked this question. Hence, it occurred to me that I should rather post the answer here on my blog for everyone to read :)

This query generally comes from those who are preparing for job interviews or that of business schools. For this purpose, one book that I have myself read and would recommend to everyone is 'Day to Day Economics' by Prof. Satish Y. Deodhar.

For microeconomics, I particularly liked Prof. Jonathan Gruber's video lectures available via MIT OCW and even on youtube.