JAPAN

Dark Days for Budget Balancers: Japan, the only major nation that has been able to balance its national budget, looks set to join the long, unhappy list of countries that operate in the red, economists said last week. They said tumbling tax revenue and sharp increases in government spending could send public sector finances slightly into deficit this fiscal year, which ends next March, and deeply into the red next year. “Everywhere you look, structural and cyclical factors are emerging to take a bite out of tax revenue,” said Mineko Sasaki-Smith, economist at Credit Suisse. She and other economists said the shortfall would limit the government’s ability to jump-start the sagging economy with lower taxes, disappointing the powerful business community. Japan had been the envy of other major nations in recent years, shifting its budget from deficit to surplus in 1988 and keeping it that way. In 1991, Tokyo posted a surplus equal to 0.7% of gross national product. By comparison, the United States was running a deficit equal to about 5% of GNP and Germany had a deficit equal to 3.1% of GNP.