Benefit Imbalance, Growth Stagnation and Risks in the Computing Era: An EDTF-Model Interpretation of Abnormal Economic Growth Rates in Japan and the United States

Japan’s prolonged economic stagnation during its "Lost Three Decades" and the sub-expected growth of the United States amid productivity iterations over the past three decades represent a typical paradox of "abnormal growth rates" in the contemporary global economy. Academic circles have long attributed this phenomenon to external shocks such as the Plaza Accord, exchange rate fluctuations, and trade deficits, lacking in-depth interpretations of structural and endogenous underlying mechanisms. Based on the original Economic Development Twelve-Factor Model (EDTF-Model), this paper constructs a ternary analytical framework consisting of 'essential root causes, secondary inducements, and external catalysts.' It adopts the K-value (benefit imbalance coefficient) as the core quantitative tool and conducts empirical analysis on long-term macroeconomic data of Japan and the United States from 1985 to 2024.The study finds that the structural imbalance of income distribution (a severe deviation of the K-value from 1) is the essential contradiction behind the abnormal economic growth rates of the two economies. Deficiencies in three core variables, namely consumption cycle (C), negative productivity regulation (N), and green increment (G), serve as major inducements exacerbating growth stagnation, while external shocks such as the Plaza Accord act only as short-term catalysts rather than decisive factors. The abnormal growth rates of Japan and the United States present a "homologous but heterogeneous" characteristic: Japan suffers from solidified benefit imbalance driven by industrial monopoly and population aging, whereas the United States faces differentiated benefit imbalance dominated by financial capital speculation. On this basis, this paper further extends the research to the computing era, revealing the new-type benefit imbalance risks triggered by the popularization of AI and computing productivity in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and proposes targeted governance paths based on the factor synergy logic of the EDTF-Model. This paper breaks the cognitive limitations of traditional external shock theory, offers a new paradigm for interpreting growth stagnation in developed economies, and provides practical guidance for balanced global development in the computing era. This is an interim achievement of the article 'Reconstructing the Underlying Logic of Western Economic Theory with Marxism' (DING Z., 2026).