What was the name of Japan’s late-1980s asset-price bubble whose collapse triggered a prolonged stock-market crash?

Japan’s late-1980s asset-price bubble was called the Japanese asset price bubble, and its collapse triggered a prolonged stock-market crash.

During the second half of the 1980s, Japanese share and land prices rose dramatically. Easy credit, strong optimism, and financial deregulation helped push asset valuations to levels that were difficult to justify by underlying earnings and rents. The Nikkei 225 reached its record closing level of 38,915.87 on December 29, 1989.

The Bank of Japan tightened monetary policy, and the bubble began to deflate around the start of the 1990s. Equity and property prices then fell for years, damaging banks, companies, and household balance sheets. Japan’s subsequent period of weak growth is commonly called the Lost Decade, although economic stagnation and financial problems extended beyond the 1990s. The bubble’s collapse was therefore a major stock-market crash embedded in a broader financial and economic crisis.