An estimation of a dynamic cost function for the U.S. steel industry to investigate the cost of adjusting blue- and white-collar employment levels and to examine the importance of specification of the adjustment-cost function.

An examination of the plant-closing decisions of integrated steel firms in the United States from 1977-1987 to determine whether firm characteristics influenced either the probability or the timing of a plant's closing during this decade of significant industry contraction.

Information on the quality of healthcare gives providers an incentive to improve care, and this incentive should be stronger in more competitive markets. We examine this hypothesis by studying Pennsylvanian hospitals during the years 1995–2004 to see whether those hospitals located in more...

This study examines the relationship between health outcomes and cost inefficiency in Florida hospitals over the period 1999-2001, with health outcomes measured by risk-adjusted in-hospital mortality rates. Previous research has come to conflicting conclusions regarding the relationship between...

This study explores the association between cost inefficiency and health outcomes in a national sample of acute-care hospitals in the US over the period 1999-2001, with health outcomes being measured by both mortality and complications rates. The empirical analysis examines health outcomes as a...

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.

An examination of the effect of EPA enforcement activity as it relates to company plant-closing decisions and company compliance decisions in the U.S. steel industry, finding fewer enforcement actions taken toward plants with an already high probability of closing.

De Beers is one of the longest lived international cartels in history. But have recent events threatened the diamond pricing structure so carefully developed over the past 100 years? In this paper, we use time series econometric techniques to evaluate the cartel's response to Russian cheating in...

A study of how excess capacity in the steel industry has persisted because of high exit barriers that have delayed the industry's contraction; includes a discussion of the effects of current trade protection and pension policies on the size of exit barriers.

A look at the U.S. Census Bureau and the Federal Reserve Board indexes of capacity utilization, with an explanation of the indexes' construction, advantages, and shortcomings; conclusion of June 15 issue.