Japan and South Korea provide an interesting contrast of fortunes in recent years. Japan has struggled to break free from nearly twenty years of deflationary equilibrium whilst South Korea has enjoyed a period of sustained economic growth, entry into the OECD group of nations and a significant convergence in income per capita with Japan.

This set of charts provides some of the key macroeconomic data for each country drawing on data produced for the International Monetary Fund's twice-yearly World Economic Outlook.

Real economic growth

Per capita incomes ($, PPP adjusted)

Capital investment as a share of national income

Consumer price inflation (%)

Gross government debt as a share of national income

Suggestions for further reading on the Japanese economy

Abenomics gets a boost but for how long? (Wall Street Journal, Feb 2015) http://www.wsj.com/articles/abenomics-gets-boost-f...

Piketty Diagnoses Japan's Sick Economy (Bloomberg, February 2015) http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-04/p...

Abenomics is put to the vote (Linda Yueh, BBC, December 2014) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30423047

Neptune's A-Z of Abenomics: http://www.investmentweek.co.uk/investment-week/ne...