The argument this series makes, in 9 steps. It is the same spine every module is built on, and no module states more of it than its own share.
After the Plaza Agreement of September 1985 the yen rose sharply, and the Bank of Japan cut its discount rate five times to 2.5 per cent by February 1987, then held it there until May 1989.
Banks, losing large borrowers to the capital markets after deregulation, lent heavily to small firms and property firms against land; lending to real estate more than doubled from 1985 to 1990.
Share prices and then land prices soared: the Nikkei 225 ended 1989 at 3.1 times its September 1985 level, and commercial land in the six major cities reached almost four times its 1985 level by September 1990.
Consumer prices barely rose, so a rate rise was hard to argue for; international coordination and the October 1987 crash added reasons to wait, on the Ministry of Finance's account.
From May 1989 the Bank of Japan raised its discount rate five times, to 6 per cent in August 1990, and in March 1990 the Ministry of Finance asked banks to limit their property lending.
Share prices fell from January 1990, to 14,309 yen in August 1992; land prices fell from 1991 and by 1999 were some 80 per cent below their peak.
Loans backed by land went bad and banks failed, Hokkaido Takushoku among them in 1997; in October 1998 the Diet provided 60 trillion yen of public funds to deal with bad loans.
Growth slowed from more than 4 per cent a year in the 1980s to about 1.2 per cent in 1991-2000, and consumer prices began to fall.
Why the slump lasted so long is argued: the Ministry of Finance's history blames tightening that came too late and too hard, Federal Reserve economists an unanticipated slide into deflation, the Cabinet Office bad loans and corporate debts.