The economic arguments for building high-speed rail systems, though, tend to be made broadly—they focus on growth in aggregate. This, of course, is useful, but given that countries such as China, the U.K., and the U.S. have either built extensive high-speed train systems or are looking into the possibility, a finer-grained approach might be helpful.

That reasoning is the impetus for a new discussion paper co-authored by economists from Dartmouth College, the University of Oslo, and Japan’s Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry. The researchers were curious about the bullet train’s effects not on regional economies, but at the level of the firm. Using data from a credit-reporting company that covers most of Japan’s economic activity—the figures they used were from nearly one million firms—they were able to more crisply visualize the connections that formed between firms and their suppliers after the introduction of a new rail link in 2004.

What they concluded is that one of the bullet train’s key benefits to companies is its ability to unite firms and suppliers. In Japan, the median distance between a firm and its supplier or customer is about 20 miles, and usually, only the most profitable companies can afford to invest in scouting out suppliers across the country. Fast trains can level out that advantage, allowing even small firms to make deals with faraway suppliers and still be assured of quality. In other words, it might be the difference, at least for a Japanese food company, between sourcing eel from Tokyo’s enormous Tsukiji fish market and getting it from the smaller town of Hamamatsu, where it’s a local specialty.

But Japan is under the impression that things need to be moving even more quickly. The construction of the newest version of the bullet train—one that wouldn't connect Tokyo to Nagoya till 2027—is now underway. But at a cost of $47 billion, the infrastructure for this latest train will be a huge strain on whoever ends up stepping forward to fund it. On the level of the consumer, too, bullet trains don’t come cheap—a typical ticket runs for about $130. Companies cover most of these costs for commuters, but everyone else is out of luck. (A Japanese scientist, upon winning the Nobel Prize in 2002, reportedly exclaimed that with his winnings he’d finally be able to buy a bullet-train ticket.)

So, any finding about the bullet train's effects, in the context of Japan, might be more applicable to the past than the future. Since 1964, Japan’s rail system has influenced other countries to invest in similar projects, but now it appears that, thanks to its high costs, the shinkansen is vulnerable to being displaced by a foreign import: Low-cost airlines have been siphoning off a steady stream of younger travelers in recent years.

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