Although I felt a bit sick during my two-and-a-half-hour trip from Osaka to Tokyo, I would jump at the chance to ride the Shinkansen again. Here's why. Japan's train system is famously reliable.

It had a maximum speed of 210 kilometers per hour, connecting Tokyo and Osaka in four hours. The current travel time has shortened to two hours and 21 minutes. The Tokaido Shinkansen Line ...

Our counterfactuals show that, without the Shinkansen, Tokyo and Osaka would be 6.3% and 4.4% larger, respectively. Published: Koster, Hans R.A., Takatoshi Tabuchi, and Jacques-François Thisse, 2022. ...