FRANKFURT, GERMANY ¨C Europe¡¯s sclerotic growth and political dysfunction inspire frequent comparisons with Japan¡¯s lost decade from the mid-1990s.
The region¡¯s bout of misery this year ¡ª Germany¡¯s industrial slump and the struggle to fix its banks, Italy¡¯s inability to reform, the apparent defeat of central bankers seeking to wean the euro area off stimulus ¡ª may seem to make perpetual malaise look inevitable.
The eurozone¡¯s economy is similar in important ways to its Asian counterpart two decades ago: Interest rates at or below zero, the mountains of debt and nonperforming loans, populations transitioning from an aging society to an aged one.
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