[fiblye]

Japan is reverting to a state of being as technologically and economically irrelevant as Western European countries.

The most common thing I see on the news and hear people worry about is the violence going on in America and in the increasingly common European terror attacks. The attitude to immigration is only being solidified here, and none of the "but what about your GDP???" stuff matters to anyone but degree mill economists. The country is safe and stable, and population is coming down to a number that's more sustainable for a small, mountainous, mostly non-arable country. That's all that people really care about.

[matt4077]

Here are a few things correlated with GDP. Note that we don't know the direction of causation, so either Japan's GDP is going sideways because corruption is on the rise–or they can expect corruption to rise because the economy is stagnating.

low levels of GDP and high levels of corruptions are correlated

poverty reduction and per capita income growth performances are correlated

economic freedom is correlated with income

Rule of law is correlated to GDP per person

There is only a partial correlation between democracy and economic growth but stronger correlation between democracy and level of GDP

As per capita income increases to around US$5,000 per annum, environmental quality falls, but then from around $8,000 per capita onwards, the environmental quality rises again

GDP and happiness is correlated

GDP per capita is correlated to percentage of population who donate to charity

GDP is correlated to individualism in a country

Wealthier countries tend to have less income inequality