Q5 - Environmental EconomicsReturn

After a sharp contraction in the economic activity in 2008-2009 (the biggest economic slump in Japan after World War II), the Japanese economy started to recover in 2010. The Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 brought Japan's recovery to a halt. It ruined vast parts of Japan's north-eastern coastal areas and damaged key infrastructure. It was one of the most destructive earthquakes in all of the Japanese history. This article focuses on the Japanese economy and its development in 2010-2012. It pays special attention to the economic impact of the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 (damage to private capital and public infrastructure, electricity shortages, supply chain disruptions, decline in production and exports, etc.). The aim of this study is to recapitulate and analyse the development of the Japanese economy in 2010-2012 and to analyse both the immediate and long-term impacts of the Great East Japan Earthquake on the Japanese economy. It focuses on the government countermeasures and new economic strategies with respect to the latest natural disaster.

Business processes take place in an environment of complex systems that consist of many interrelated elements with stochastic and dynamic characteristics. Simulation and management methods were developed to cope with such complexity. Simulation and management methods are interdependent disciplines that were developed relatively separately, but we argue that simulation can serve as a tool for implementation of specific management methods, and at the same time, simulation and operational research represent the methodological foundation for many modern management methods.