IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jpolmo/v39y2017i5p762-774.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pricing, concentration & public policy: The U.S. automobile market

Author

Listed:
  • Tansey, Michael
  • Raju, Sudhakar

Abstract

The U.S. automobile market experienced dramatic changes in concentration over the six decades after World War II. In addition to dynamic changes in market structure, the U.S. automobile market experienced significant public policy changes in the form of price and export controls. This experience provides a unique opportunity to test the effect of changing concentration on prices and the effectiveness of controls in a highly visible, dynamic industry. We identify a threshold concentration level below which prices converge to competitive equilibrium. Above this threshold, pricing is essentially consistent with monopoly pricing. Price controls appear to have reduced automobile prices while export controls had little discernible overall effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Tansey, Michael & Raju, Sudhakar, 2017. "Pricing, concentration & public policy: The U.S. automobile market," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 762-774.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jpolmo:v:39:y:2017:i:5:p:762-774
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpolmod.2017.07.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0161893817300844
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpolmod.2017.07.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert C. Feenstra, 1984. "Voluntary Export Restraint in U.S. Autos, 1980-81: Quality, Employment, and Welfare Effects," NBER Chapters, in: The Structure and Evolution of Recent US Trade Policy, pages 35-66, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. James Levinsohn & Steven Berry & Ariel Pakes, 1999. "Voluntary Export Restraints on Automobiles: Evaluating a Trade Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 400-430, June.
    3. White, Lawrence J, 1972. "The American Automobile Industry and the Small Car, 1945-70," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 179-192, April.
    4. Lutz Kilian, 2008. "The Economic Effects of Energy Price Shocks," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 871-909, December.
    5. Goldberg, Pinelopi Koujianou, 1995. "Product Differentiation and Oligopoly in International Markets: The Case of the U.S. Automobile Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 891-951, July.
    6. Kenneth E. Train & Clifford Winston, 2007. "Vehicle Choice Behavior And The Declining Market Share Of U.S. Automakers," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(4), pages 1469-1496, November.
    7. Im, Kyung So & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 2003. "Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 53-74, July.
    8. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    9. Sarah E. West & Roberton C. Williams III, 2005. "The Cost of Reducing Gasoline Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 294-299, May.
    10. Russell Cooper & John Haltiwanger, 1993. "Automobiles and the National Industrial Recovery Act: Evidence on Industry Complementarities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(4), pages 1043-1071.
    11. Levinsohn, James, 1994. "International trade and the U.S. automobile industry: Current research, issues, and questions," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 335-357, December.
    12. Davis, Steven J. & Haltiwanger, John, 2001. "Sectoral job creation and destruction responses to oil price changes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 465-512, December.
    13. Bresnahan, Timothy F & Ramey, Valerie A, 1993. "Segment Shifts and Capacity Utilization in the U.S. Automobile Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 213-218, May.
    14. David W. Harless & George E. Hoffer, 2002. "Do Women Pay More for New Vehicles? Evidence from Transaction Price Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 270-279, March.
    15. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    16. Bresnahan, Timothy F, 1987. "Competition and Collusion in the American Automobile Industry: The 1955 Price War," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 457-482, June.
    17. Levin, Andrew & Lin, Chien-Fu & James Chu, Chia-Shang, 2002. "Unit root tests in panel data: asymptotic and finite-sample properties," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-24, May.
    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. Calabrese, Giuseppe Giulio & Manello, Alessandro, 2018. "Firm internationalization and performance: Evidence for designing policies," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1221-1242.

    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. Tovar, Jorge, 2012. "Consumers’ Welfare and Trade Liberalization: Evidence from the Car Industry in Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 808-820.
    2. Lázár Ede, 2014. "Quantifying the Economic Value of Warranties: A Survey," Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 2(1), pages 75-94, October.
    3. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2019. "Brands in Motion: How Frictions Shape Multinational Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(9), pages 3073-3124, September.
    4. Jan De Loecker & Johannes Van Biesebroeck, 2016. "Effect of International Competition on Firm Productivity and Market Power," NBER Working Papers 21994, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Kaiser, Ulrich & Mendez, Susan J. & Rønde, Thomas & Ullrich, Hannes, 2014. "Regulation of pharmaceutical prices: Evidence from a reference price reform in Denmark," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 174-187.
    6. Rebecca Hellerstein, 2005. "A Decomposition of the Sources of Incomplete Cross-Border Transmission," 2005 Meeting Papers 805, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Dalton, John T. & Goksel, Turkmen, 2013. "Reputation and learning: Japanese car exports to the United States," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25, pages 10-23.
    8. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2021. "Poor Substitutes? Counterfactual methods in IO and Trade compared," Working Papers 2021-11, CEPII research center.
    9. Friberg, Richard & Huse, Cristian, 2012. "How to use demand systems to evaluate risky projects, with an application to automobile production," CEPR Discussion Papers 9266, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Pesendorfer, Martin & Schiraldi, Pasquale & Silva-Junior, Daniel, 2023. "Omitted budget constraint bias in discrete-choice demand models," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    11. Chen, Natalie & Graham, Liam & Oswald, Andrew J, 2007. "Oil Prices, Profits, and Recessions : An Inquiry Using Terrorism as an Instrumental Variable," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 809, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    12. Antonio M. Bento & Lawrence H. Goulder & Mark R. Jacobsen & Roger H. von Haefen, 2009. "Distributional and Efficiency Impacts of Increased US Gasoline Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 667-699, June.
    13. Andrikopoulos, Athanasios & Markellos, Raphael N., 2015. "Dynamic interaction between markets for leasing and selling automobiles," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 260-270.
    14. Jorge Tovar, 2004. "The Welfare Effects Of Trade Liberalization: Evidence From The Car Industry In Colombia," Documentos CEDE 3638, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    15. Marco Guerzoni & Rene Soellner, 2013. "Uniqueness Seeking and Demand Estimation in the German Automobile Industry," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 3(2), pages 179-199, December.
    16. Richard Schmalensee, 2012. "“On a Level with Dentists?” Reflections on the Evolution of Industrial Organization," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 41(3), pages 157-179, November.
    17. Minsoo Park & Hongjai Rhee, 2014. "Effects of FTA Provisions on the Market Structure of the Korean Automobile Industry," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 45(1), pages 39-58, August.
    18. Douglas Nelson, 1996. "The Political Economy of U.S. Automobile Protection," NBER Chapters, in: The Political Economy of American Trade Policy, pages 133-196, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Shiau, Ching-Shin Norman & Michalek, Jeremy J. & Hendrickson, Chris T., 2009. "A structural analysis of vehicle design responses to Corporate Average Fuel Economy policy," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 43(9-10), pages 814-828, November.
    20. Wei-Min Hu & Junji Xiao & Xiaolan Zhou, 2014. "Collusion or Competition? Interfirm Relationships in the Chinese Auto Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 1-40, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Automobile pricing; Concentration; Cournot model; Chamberlin model; Price and export controls;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L62 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Automobiles; Other Transportation Equipment; Related Parts and Equipment
    • R4 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics

    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:eee:jpolmo:v:39:y:2017:i:5:p:762-774. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505735 .

    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.