[lmm]

> To my knowledge only 2 things that could qualify as incentive exist:

> - commuting allowances are not considered taxable income for employee

> - commuting allowance could be used to reduce tax base for the business

> But this is not something I'd call 'heavily'.

They do both those things, so commute costs are a free tax discount. But they also just tell companies directly that they want them to act in a certain way, and the companies generally fall into line. While the zaibatsu have nominally disappeared, there are still very close ties between the politicians and big businesses in Japan.