When the devastating earthquake and tsunami hit northern Japan on March 11, economists reached for their history books. They found a direct and somewhat reassuring parallel: the huge quake that struck Kobe in 1995.
Kobe was a human tragedy but an economic blip. Factories elsewhere in Japan upped their output, reconstruction soaked up idle workers, and the economy grew during the quarter in which the earthquake struck. The Kobe area produced 4.1 per cent of Japan’s output, just as hard-hit Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures do today.
But nearly a fortnight on from the latest quake, economists are looking at the differences between the two events and are starting to worry.
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