Big Steel: Technology, Trade, and Survival in a Global Market

Front Cover
UBC Press, Jan 1, 2010 - Business & Economics - 248 pages

Steel is the mainstay of the world's major industries. World steel production has grown dramatically as countries industrialize and add their own steel-producing capacity. China's prodigious expansion of steel output increases the industry's natural vulnerability to oversupply and volatile prices.

Big Steel explores how the integrated steel industry is adapting to trade and international competition. These arise from the industry's diffusion beyond its historical core in North America and Europe. To show how this occurred, Big Steel applies Paul Krugman's Nobel-Prize-winning explanation of industrial location and trade. The industry's technology and economic structure, and the pricing strategies available, produce fateful competition and incentives to consolidate internationally. Examining the industry's survival options, including close co-operation with its primary customers, the automakers, this book anticipates a cosmopolitan future. It is a straightforward account of a complicated process, and the development of a new phase in the global steel business.

 

Contents

1 Introduction
1
2 A Tough Industry
17
3 Prices Preferences and Strategy
61
4 Trading Steel
83
5 Survival
133
6 Steel in a Global Perspective
175
Notes
195
Bibliography
223
Index
234
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2010)

Daniel Madar is a professor of political science at Brock University and author of Heavy Traffic: Deregulation, Trade, and Transformation in North American Trucking.

Bibliographic information