Overall, is a weak yen good for Japan’s economy?

For tourism and exporting companies, yes. For everything else as well as cost of living, no. So no.

I wonder how this affects the outbound tourism industry? We used to always hear at least a few people going to Hawaii every year but I feel like I don't hear this anymore.

A weak anything is never good in the long run.

It;s both good and bad depending on what part of the economy you are measuring. To give only the option of good and bad makes for a poorly though out poll.

Define “weak.”

There was a time when 130 yen/dollar was weak, or even 120 yen. Now that would be strong.

Japanese companies and individuals have offshored a lot of wealth. Do they repatriate some of that wealth when the yen is weak? Or do they hold onto foreign-currency assets as a hedge? Ideally, they would do the former, which would keep the yen mostly in balance.

Currently, in reality, repatriation of wealth doesn’t seem to be happening. There is very little confidence in Japan’s economic potential right now. Manufacturing is still a thing, but Japan can’t compete with China for low-cost goods. Innovation is only in small pockets, not enough to spur a broadly strong economy. Few people want to invest in a shrinking economy.

The result is more and more wealth exiting Japan. The weak yen is good for exporters. However, they get paid in dollars and appear to be choosing to keep as much of that money as possible in dollars and overseas. Inflation rises and wages don’t, with Japan’s economy looking smaller by the day.

It would work if Japanese people stopped using foreign electronics such as Apple and started using the Japanese ad companies instead of those sponsored by Google or Facebook. It is expensive to use Apple but affordable to buy Japanese using Yen.

The other big problem would be imports of petroleum from the Middle East, so Japan needs to ramp up renewable energy and nuclear production.

No. Its decimating the middle class.

Japan is an export economy so the weak yen is a bonus for the large manufacturing companies. But pushes up import prices for the workers in those companies. IF the companies increase the salaries to compensate, then the weak yen is good. However, I don't think this has happened so a weak yen is good for exporters. Not so good for the rest.

This is the reult of following US and IMF farctional reserve banking.

The quality of imported goods in supermarkets has drastically declined. Lots of cheap crap.

Brilliant for inbound tourism - foreign tourists are finding Japan very cheap compared to other first world destinations. Excellent for exporters.

Bad for those who like to buy imported things. It is a time for Japanese to start buying local and steering clear of imported foods and products.

It's good for my economy. OTOH, I do feel bad for all those folks in low-paying jobs seeing much of their purchasing power, and thus their standard of living, shrinking. Wages here really do need to rise, especially with the inflation and weakened yen.

The weak yen is a detriment for the majority due to mostly everything being imported.

High food prices in Japan’s boom times were offset by higher wages.

Now, Japan no longer offers high wages.

Japan is dependent on food imports and people have no choice but to pay higher prices for those imports.

The poorer sections of society with less disposable income are its victims.

Aside from cheap Chinese imports most food imports are expensive.

Whilst Europe is now relying more and more on cheap food imports from Africa, Japan doesn’t have the benefit of being near a large southern landmass.

Depends on what you mean with Japans economy. It's good for the big guys trading on the international market but bad for the regular workers and small/mid companies. Sadly the only thing they can do to change it outside of the USD going bad on it's own is to make interest rate changes, and this will be bad for everyone as well.

Any that voted "No" is shortsighted in my book. The weak Yen is giving Japan the shot in the arm it needs in order to revive this economy and slowly help many of Japan's rural areas. This country is prime for an increase in tourism and the weak Yen is helping to boost sales of domestically produced goods. If the Japanese govt. can get off of its ass and figure ways to attract foreign workers then it would even help more.

By every international measure I read, Japan is falling behind. Hold your breath, but incomes in South Korea are higher.

I voted no. That's because it pushes up input prices on everyone and only benefits those selling to folks from overseas, manufacturers of stuff people overseas want, i.e., not necessarily the cars etc. Japanese people themselves want, and folks working in tourism.

I work in tourism myself as a sideline, and my impression is that there is widespread smugness, i.e., an attitude "of course Johnny foreigner wants to come here to see our wonderful xxxx, taste our delicious yyyy, and experience our incredible mmmm". This attitude can be neatly summarized by the "o mo te na shi" phrase used during the Olympic bid. It is "we are special and deserve your custom".

Instead, the attitude should be how do we make tourism to Japan better to create an income stream that can still thrive when the trendy place to go becomes somewhere else. Tourism in Japan is full of people who when asked will not speak English or other languages, will not know where you can get vegetarian, Halal, or gluten free food, will not know where you can use a foreign bank card to withdraw money for cash to buy food at a matsuri, and a whole host of other issues that genuine o mo te na shi should cover. The current tendency in Japan is to see anyone who wants Halal or vegetarian food not as a guest but as a troublemaker.

@kohakuebisu

Indian style vegetarian food is available in Japan thanks to historic Indian influences.

Weak Yen - depends which side of the coin you're talking about if it's a good thing or not, as it's not a binary answer. If the intent to make your economy into an exporting / tourist driven economy, then that's most likely a "yes." However, if you're not exporting enough and/or your prices for what I call mandatory imports (e.g., petroleum products, NLG, raw materials, rare Earth metals, etc.) needed to make those exports are outpacing the ROI on those exports, then that's typically a "no", and typically leads to government budget deficits as people are spending less (due to inflationary effects of higher import costs and a weaker currency).