Exit barriers in the steel industry

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.Steel industry and trade ; Manufactures

The impact of firm characteristics on plant closing decisions

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.Industries ; Steel industry and trade

Factor-adjustment costs at the industry level

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.Industries ; Steel industry and trade

Enforcement of pollution regulations in a declining 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.Steel industry and trade ; Pollution

Exit from the U.S. steel industry

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.Steel industry and trade ; Industries

Hospital ownership and drug utilization under a global budget: a quantile regression analysis

Background: A global budgeting system helps control the growth of healthcare spending by setting expenditure ceilings. However, the hospital global budget implemented in Taiwan in 2002 included a special provision: drug expenditures are reimbursed at face value, while other expenditures are subject to discounting. That gives hospitals, particularly those that are for-profit, an incentive to increase drug expenditures in treating patients. Methods: We calculated monthly drug expenditures by hospital departments from January 1997 to June 2006, using a sample of 348 193 patient claims to Taiwan National Health Insurance. To allow for variation among responses by departments with differing reliance on drugs and among hospitals of different ownerships, we used quantile regression to identify the effect of the hospital global budget on drug expenditures. Results: Although drug expenditure increased in all hospital departments after the enactment of the hospital global budget, departments in for-profit hospitals that rely more heavily on drug treatments increased drug spending more, relative to public hospitals. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that a global budgeting system with special reimbursement provisions for certain treatment categories may alter treatment decisions and may undermine cost-containment goals, particularly among for-profit hospitals

Exit Strategies and Plant-Closing Decisions: The Case of Steel

Several articles show that differences in firm characteristics such as size or diversification may affect plant-closing decisions during an industry's decline such that higher-cost plants survive lower-cost plants. Examination of the plant-closing decisions of integrated steel firms indicates that individual plant characteristics that determine expected revenues and costs explain much of the firms' plant-closing behavior but that firm size may have had some effect at well.