This interactive case study combines data that is publicly available in Google Data with questions for the students so they can reflect on the policies of Japan that affect their economic development.

The idea is that students can understand the liquidity trap (how low interest rates end up making the monetary policy useless), what can be expected of growth when it is based on debt, some of the structural limits to growth (like aging population and technology) and the importance of political stability in the growth process.

The context for the case is a meeting where the finance ministry of Japan calls on the class (who role play as consultants) to help them understand the situation. The information offered includes embedded content from google data that the students can navigate through different graphs organized to depict many of the main economic variables and relevant relations between them, and is combined with research questions to ensure active student participation. It also has a professor's page that will include additional information on several events related to social, economic and political events that affect the aforementioned variables, as well as a place to display the student's answers, that may be hand-picked if desired.

An advantage of using Google Data for this case is the fact that the information is kept permanently up-to-date