Empirical Study on the Effects of Deregulation in the Japanese Taxi Market

Abstract

In this study, we conducted a disequilibrium analysis from data such as the number of vehicles and driver wages related to taxi mileage in order to verify whether excess demand has occurred in the taxi market as a result of government supply and demand adjustments. As a result, the policy of protecting drivers did not have a positive effect on taxi actual vehicle kilometers which we defined as the total distance of the taxi ride, but rather those kilometers could be increased by increasing the number of taxis. In particular, in urban areas where excess taxi demand is occurring, increasing the number of taxis will increase user convenience.