Japanese regulation of truck transport

Since 1951 the Japanese Ministry of Transport has been vested with sweeping authority to restrict entry and set prices in commercial trucking, but the standard price schedules that it continues to publicize and periodically r evise are in fact widely disregarded by commercial trucking firms. There ar e no economies or diseconomies of scale and firms have expanded until indus try profits are exhausted. The changes in truck transport regulation introd uced in 1991 were mainly directed at freeing a new activity, parcel deliver y service, from regulatory constraints and spreading some of the benefits t o others in the industry. (C) 2001 by Academic Press.