A regulatory agency enforcing compliance in a declining industry might recognize that certain plants would close rather than comply, and that these closings would impose large costs on the local community.
Examination of plant-closing decisions of integrated steel firms in the U.S. from 1977-1987 to determine whether firm characteristics influenced either probability or timing of plant’s closing during this decade of significant industry contraction.
The development of a test for whether an industry reduces capacity by first closing its highest-cost plants, using plant-level data from the U.S. steel industry.
Capacity-utilization measures can be useful in evaluating industry price pressures, investment, and war mobilization capabilities. In this first article of a two-part series, the authors define and examine some of these measures.
