Comment by alephnerd
1 year ago
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...
Ah you meant the entire economy, not just the railways