Deflation, the bugbear of Japan’s economy during the first half of the last decade, has returned with a vengeance since the financial crisis, creating a receptive audience for such survival guides, however austere their counsel.
Consumer prices, the standard measure of deflation, fell 1.3 per cent last year, excluding the volatile cost of fresh food, the biggest decline since records began. Such changes quickly add up: Japanese prices are back to where they were in the mid-1990s. Prices in the UK have risen 30 per cent since then.
