Harry Bloch

Specification and Testing the Profit-Concentration Relationship in Australian Manufacturing

Research in the mainstream of industrial organization has tested the relationship between profit rates (an index of performance) and concentration (an index of structure) including other variables (e.g., capital intensity, advertising intensity, growth, measures for barriers to entry, import and export intensity). Specification of this relationship is often largely ad hoc and its testing is subject to a number of statistical criticisms. Major criticisms that require attention are: i) omission of the relevant explanatory variables, ii) simultaneous causality among variables, and iii) measurement error in the variables. This paper derives a profit-concentration relationship from a well known oligopoly model. Empirical analysis is carried out against a sample of Australian manufacturing industries for 1984–85. The resulting estimates suggest the importance of dealing with each of the specification and testing issues in explaining the profit-concentration relationship.

Australian telephone network subscription and calling demands: evidence from a stated-preference experiment

This paper examines the impact of the subscription-calling rate structure on the demand for residential telephone network subscription and calling. Stated-preference experimental data are used to estimate demand equations. The results indicate that household network subscription and calling demands for the Sydney Metropolitan Area are affected by both rate structure and household socio-demographic variables.

Sample-selection procedures for estimating the relationship between concentration and profitability from cross-industry data

Aggregation of homogeneous product markets into industry classifications or disequilibrium in terms of differences between expected and actual market shares can lead to bias in the estimated relationship between concentration and profitability from regressions using cross-industry data. The relationship between concentration and profitability over the period from 1965 to 1980 is estimated for various samples of Canadian manufacturing industries. Regressions for the full sample of industries lead to rejection of the hypotheses from either structure-conduct-performance (structuralist) analysis or a model of oligopolistic equilibrium. However, regressions for subsamples of industries selected to remove industries subject to aggregation provide results consistent with the structuralist hypothesis, while regressions for industries selected to remove industries subject to both aggregation and disequilibrium provide results consistent with the oligopolistic equilibrium hypothesis.

Productivity growth in Australian manufacturing: a vintage capital model

Recent contributions by Hulten (1992) and Gort et al. (1993) indicate a renewed interest in using capital-embodied technology models to understand the sources of productivity growth. An advantage of models with capital-embodied technology is that current productivity is related to the prior time path of investment. This provides a potential dynamic link between past market conditions and current productivity performance. In particular, models with capital-embodied technology provide a possible explanation for the positive relationship between productivity growth and the rate of investment, particularly investment in capital equipment, found in cross-country studies (see, for example, Wolff (1991) and De Long and Summers (1992)). Regressions in the form of the relationships derived from the analysis are estimated using data for a cross-section of Australian manufacturing industries. Variables suggested by the analysis of the vintage capital model contribute significantly to the explanation of differences in average labour productivity growth across the sample industries. However, specific restrictions on coefficient values derived from the analysis are rejected by the regression results. The implications of this mixed support for the application of the vintage capital model to explaining labour productivity growth in Australian manufacturing are discussed

Prebisch and Singer Effects on the Terms of Trade between Primary Producers and Manufacturers

Papers by Prebisch (1950) and Singer (1950) argue that there is a secular decline in the terms of trade for developing countries in their dealings with the industrialized countries. Both Prebisch and Singer observe that exports from the developing countries are dominated by primary products, while imports are dominated by manufactured goods. They then associate the adverse change in terms of trade for developing countries with the decline in the price of primary products relative to the price of manufactures.

Trend in the International Terms of Trade Between Primary Producers and Manufacturers

Movements in the terms of trade between primary producers and manufacturers are analyzed using a model that introduces the influence of relative wage movements in the primary and manufacturing sectors as well as the influence of mark-up pricing in manufacturing. The model is estimated using data on the relative price of primary commodities and manufactured goods in international trade during the post-World War II (WWII) period. A decline in wages of primary-sector workers relative to those of workers in manufacturing and a rise in manufacturing margins are both estimated to have reduced the terms of trade for primary producers. However, expansion of manufacturing output is estimated to have a positive impact that has more than offset the negative influences during periods of moderate to strong growth.

The impact of world manufacturing growth on Australia's trading position

Michal Kaleckis pricing analysis is found to provide a fruitful basis for an examination of the impact of world business cycles on Australias international trade. Australias terms of trade are found to move procyclically with world manufacturing production as implied by application of the analysis. Implications of the change in the terms of trade for domestic producers and consumers are developed by adapting Kaleckis analysis to an open economy context. Fluctuations in world manufacturing are found to have a negligible impact on Australias export volume and a strong positive impact on her import volume as expected based on application of the adapted analysis.

Does openness mean that domestic prices are determined abroad

What are the forces behind the increasing globalization of economic life? How does globalization affect the functioning of national economies? What difficulties confront government policymakers in dealing with the global economy? These issues are addressed in this volume by leading specialists. The contributors present a range of unique and varied perspectives from which they consider aspects of the increasing integration of economic life, exploring implications for the functioning of domestic markets in a rapidly changing global economy. The result is a collection of insights that provide a framework for understanding globalization as an economic phenomenon.

International Competition and the Degree of Monopoly in Australian Manufacturing

Pricing behaviour in open economies is examined by adapting Kaleckis analysis of pricing in closed economies. The parameters of the resulting pricing equation are estimated using data for a sample of Australian manufacturing industries. These estimates are then used to calculate measures reflecting the degree of monopoly for an open economy, which are compared with the ratio of aggregate proceeds to aggregate direct costs as a measure reflecting the degree of monopoly for a closed economy.