Princes of the Yen

The Princes of the Yen – Japan's Central Bankers and the Transformation of the Economy is a book by Richard Werner, a German monetary and development economist.

History

Werner spent much of the '90s and early 2000s in Japan, where he was a visiting researcher at the Bank of Japan and the Ministry of Finance and lecturing professor at Sophia University. In 2001, Werner published Princes of the Yen published in Japanese by Soshisha, Tokyo.
In 2003, the English translation was published by the academic publisher M.E. Sharpe in Armonk, New York/Routledge.
In 2016, the English translation, including the “long lost last chapter”, was published by Quantum Publishers in Winchester/London.

Contents

The book is an investigation of the macroeconomic driving forces behind the so-called Lost Decade, when the Japanese economy performed very poorly despite having witnessed many decades of hyper-growth. The book aimed to reveal the backroom dealings and secret plannings of the central bankers of Japan and the world in general.

Adaptations

The book was the basis for a documentary of the same name written and directed by Michael Oswald and released by Spider's Web Films.