Comment by ApolloFortyNine
1 year ago
Japan did it in 1987 and the shinkanzen is still well known for its on time percentage.
And they don't cheat either with an x minute grace period. On time means the minute on the timetable.
So it's certainly possible.
Japan is also heavily consolidated compared to other countries.
The largest shareholders for all the privatized rails in Japan are a mixture of Mitsubishi Group, Mitsui Group and Mizuhou Group.
Western anti-trust doesn't allow that level of consolidation - everything is basically owned by a handful of Keiretsu.
I highly recommend reading "Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan" by Takeo Hoshi and Anil Kashyap to learn about this [0].
[0] - https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262582483/corporate-financing-a...
It’s hardly consolidated compared to Germany??
The Japanese economy is significantly more consolidated than Germany's.
Vertical and Horizontal Integration (like what the 3 groups above do) is heavily regulated and litigated against in the EU [0][1], especially under Vestager.
Japan on the other hand doesn't actually regulate against either forms of market dominance. All three of those groups (called zaibatsu/keiretsu) have had market dominance in Japan since the 16th century.
That's why I recommended reading that book above - Antitrust in the Western sense doesn't actually exist in Asian countries, all of whom modeled their economies on Japan and with Japanese advice (METI) and aid (eg. ADB).
[0] - https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/antitrust-and-cartel...
[1] - https://www.cliffordchance.com/content/dam/cliffordchance/br...
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