IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ssb/dispap/237.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Response by the Norwegian Aluminium Industry to Changing Market Structure

Author

Listed:

Abstract

This paper analyses how changes in market structure have affected the margins (measured by the Lerner index) of Norwegian aluminium plants. Instead of showing the expected negative trend, due to increased competition internationally, the margins are found to move procyclically around a constant that significantly exceeds zero. Three explanations for this stability in the levels of the margins are identified; a better exploitation of scale economies, increased productivity and product specialisation which allows Norwegian producer prices to increase more rapidly than the international reference price.

Suggested Citation

  • Kjersti-Gro Lindquist, 1998. "The Response by the Norwegian Aluminium Industry to Changing Market Structure," Discussion Papers 237, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
  • Handle: RePEc:ssb:dispap:237
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ssb.no/a/publikasjoner/pdf/DP/dp237.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ian Domowitz & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1986. "Business Cycles and the Relationship Between Concentration and Price-Cost Margins," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 1-17, Spring.
    2. repec:adr:anecst:y:1989:i:15-16:p:13 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Julio J. Rotemberg & Michael Woodford, 1991. "Markups and the Business Cycle," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1991, Volume 6, pages 63-140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Domowitz, Ian & Hubbard, R Glenn & Petersen, Bruce C, 1987. "Oligopoly Supergames: Some Empirical Evidence on Prices and Margins," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 379-398, June.
    5. Gilbert, Christopher L, 1995. "Modelling Market Fundamentals: A Model of the Aluminum Market," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(4), pages 385-410, Oct.-Dec..
    6. Rosenbaum, David I., 1989. "An empirical test of the effect of excess capacity in price setting, capacity-constrained supergames," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 231-241, June.
    7. Lindquist, Kjersti-Gro, 1995. "The Existence of Factor Substitution in the Primary Aluminum Industry: A Multivariate Error-Correction Approach Using Norwegian Panel Data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 361-383.
    8. Christensen, Laurits R & Jorgenson, Dale W & Lau, Lawrence J, 1973. "Transcendental Logarithmic Production Frontiers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 55(1), pages 28-45, February.
    9. Timothy F. Bresnahan & Valérie Y. Suslow, 1989. "Oligopoly Pricing with Capacity Constraints," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 15-16, pages 267-289.
    10. Reynolds, Stanley S, 1986. "Strategic Capital Investment in the American Aluminum Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(3), pages 225-245, March.
    11. repec:adr:anecst:y:1989:i:15-16:p:12 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Bils, Mark, 1987. "The Cyclical Behavior of Marginal Cost and Price," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 838-855, December.
    13. Engle, Robert F. & Yoo, Byung Sam, 1987. "Forecasting and testing in co-integrated systems," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 143-159, May.
    14. Mizon, Grayham E, 1977. "Inferential Procedures in Nonlinear Models: An Application in a UK Industrial Cross Section Study of Factor Substitution and Returns to Scale," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(5), pages 1221-1242, July.
    15. Froeb, Luke & Geweke, John, 1987. "Long run competition in the U.S. aluminum industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 67-78, March.
    16. A. P. Lerner, 1934. "The Concept of Monopoly and the Measurement of Monopoly Power," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 1(3), pages 157-175.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bjørn E. Naug, 1999. "Modelling the Demand for Imports and Domestic Output," Discussion Papers 243, Statistics Norway, Research Department.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lindquist, Kjersti-Gro, 2001. "The response by the Norwegian aluminium industry to changing market structure," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 79-98, January.
    2. Andrea Vaona, 2016. "A nonparametric panel data approach to the cyclical dynamics of price-cost margins in the fourth Kondratieff wave," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 6(2), pages 155-170, August.
    3. Isabel Figuerola-Ferretti, 2005. "Prices and production cost in aluminium smelting in the short and the long run," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(8), pages 917-928.
    4. Chen, Jiawei, 2009. "The effects of mergers with dynamic capacity accumulation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 92-109, January.
    5. Jan Askildsen & Øivind Nilsen, 2010. "Markup cyclicality and input factor adjustments," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 409-428, April.
    6. Jaimovich, Nir, 2007. "Firm dynamics and markup variations: Implications for sunspot equilibria and endogenous economic fluctuations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 300-325, November.
    7. Dou, Winston Wei & Ji, Yan & Wu, Wei, 2021. "Competition, profitability, and discount rates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 582-620.
    8. Jaimovich, Nir & Floetotto, Max, 2008. "Firm dynamics, markup variations, and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 1238-1252, October.
    9. Konopczak, Karolina, 2019. "Modelling cyclical variation in the cost pass-through: evidence from regime-dependent ARDL model," MF Working Papers 36, Ministry of Finance in Poland.
    10. Marco Cornia & Kristopher S. Gerardi & Adam Hale Shapiro, 2010. "Consumer Heterogeneity and Markups over the Business Cycle: Evidence from the Airline Industry," BEA Working Papers 0056, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    11. J. Stephen Ferris, 2012. "The Relationship Between Government Size and Economic Performance with Particular Application to New Zealand," Carleton Economic Papers 12-06, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 25 Apr 2013.
    12. Hart, Robert A. & Malley, James R., 2000. "Marginal cost and price over the business cycle: comparative evidence from Japan and the United States," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 547-569, September.
    13. Khan, Hashmat & Kim, Bae-Geun, 2013. "Markups and oil prices in Canada," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 799-813.
    14. repec:cuf:journl:y:2017:v:18:i:1:jensen is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Daniel Ryan, 2000. "Fluctuations in productivity growth rates and input utilization in U.S. manufacturing," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 28(2), pages 150-163, June.
    16. Rotemberg, Julio J. & Woodford, Michael, 1999. "The cyclical behavior of prices and costs," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 1051-1135, Elsevier.
    17. Perloff, Jeffrey M., 1991. "Econometric analysis of imperfect competition and implications for trade research," CUDARE Working Papers 47252, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    18. Spiegel, Yossi & Stahl, Konrad, 2014. "Industry structure and pricing over the business cycle," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-039, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    19. Kollmann, Robert, 1997. "The cyclical behavior of mark ups in U.S. manufacturing and trade: new empirical evidence based on a model of optimal storage," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 331-337, December.
    20. Carmen García & Joan Ramon Borrell & José Manuel Ordóñez-de-Haro & Juan Luis Jiménez, 2022. "Managers’ expectations, business cycles and cartels’ life cycle," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 451-484, June.
    21. Ghosal, Vivek, 2000. "Product market competition and the industry price-cost markup fluctuations:: role of energy price and monetary changes," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 415-444, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Lerner index; Translog cost function; Aluminium industry; Differentiated products;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L61 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Metals and Metal Products; Cement; Glass; Ceramics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ssb:dispap:237. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: L Maasø (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ssbgvno.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.