The Impact of Rideshare in Japan

Kazuro Saguchi, Sanford Jacoby and Thomas Altura
Additional contact information
Kazuro Saguchi: Graduate School of Economics, The University of Tokyo
Sanford Jacoby: Luskin School of Economics, University of California Los Angeles
Thomas Altura: Department of Economics, San Jose State University

No CIRJE-J-296, CIRJE J-Series from CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo

Abstract: Recently we have seen that the symbol of the Sharing Economy--Uber--has met with resistance in many countries but least of all in the United States. Japan is one of those countries where Uber has been confronted by strong forces of opposition. Yet the situation of Uber in Japan deserves special analysis so as to bring out the essential conditions for ridesharing to enter a nation without difficulty. In this paper, we pay attention especially to the employment status of the average Japanese taxi driver and to the position of taxis in the Japanese transportation system. For these factors, we find clear differences between Japan and the United States. We also find that the possibility of ridesharing in Japan has transformed the working situation of taxi drivers in Japan. We discusss, from various viewpoints, how these factors may lead to a drastic dualization of drivers in Japan’s taxi industry.

Pages: 26pages
Date: 2018-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tre
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2018/2018cj296.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tky:jseres:2018cj296

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CIRJE J-Series from CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CIRJE administrative office ().