The impact of international oil prices on petroleum industry concentration in China: an analysis based on convergence and cointegration

Abstract

Industry competition analysis is an important aspect of the study of competitive advantage and competition strategy. Convergence analysis is an effective approach to describing industry competition dynamics and was employed in the current study to investigate the influence of oil prices on the concentration of the petroleum industry. It was found that industry concentrations in this context had no significant σ-convergence and absolute β-convergence. By introducing international oil prices as the influence index, this research found that petrochemical industry concentration had significant β-convergence, while the international oil price increases made the trends of the convergence diminish. Through co-integration analysis, it was also found that, over the long-term, compared with petroleum processing and the chemical fibre industry, the competition environment of the plastic products industry has gradually improved; however, the rise in international oil prices is likely to reduce the bargaining power of the plastic products industry.