From the 1960s to the 1980s, overall real economic growth has been called a "miracle": a 10% average in the 1960s, a 5% average in the 1970s and a 4% average in the 1980s.

Growth slowed markedly in the late 1990s, largely due to the Bank of Japan's failure to cut interest rates quickly enough to counter after-effects of over-investment during the late 1980s. Some economists believe that because the Bank of Japan failed to cut rates quickly enough, Japan entered a liquidity trap. Therefore, to keep its economy afloat, Japan ran massive budget deficits (added trillions in Yen to Japanese financial system) to finance large public works programs. By 1998, Japan's public works projects still could not stimulate demand enough to end the economy's stagnation. In desperation, the Japanese government undertook "structural reform" policies intended to wring speculative excesses from the stock and real estate markets. Unfortunately, these policies led Japan into deflation on numerous occasions between 1999 and 2004. In his 1998 paper, Japan's Trap, Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman argued that based on a number of models, Japan had a new option. Krugman's plan called for a rise in inflation expectations to, in effect, cut long-term interest rates and promote spending.[30] Japan used another technique, somewhat based on Krugman's, called Quantitative easing. As opposed to flooding the money supply with newly printed money, the Bank of Japan expanded the money supply internally to raise expectations of inflation. Initially, the policy failed to induce any growth, but it eventually began to effect inflationary expectations. By late 2005, the economy finally began what seems to be a sustained recovery. GDP growth for that year was 2.8%, with an annualized fourth quarter expansion of 5.5%, surpassing the growth rates of the US and European Union during the same period. Unlike previous recovery trends, domestic consumption has been the dominant factor of growth.

Despite having interest rates down near zero for a long period of time, the Quantitative easing strategy did not succeed in stopping price deflation. This led some economists, such as Paul Krugman, and some Japanese politicians, to speak of deliberately causing hyperinflation. In July 2006, the zero-rate policy was ended. In 2008, the Japanese Central Bank still has the lowest interest rates in the developed world, deflation has still not been eliminated and the Nikkei 225 has fallen over approximately 50% (between June 2007 and December 2008).

The Economist has suggested that improvements to bankruptcy law, land transfer law, and tax laws will aid Japan's economy.

In recent years, Japan has been the top export market for almost 15 trading nations worldwide.

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