Non-durable Goods Industries Research Articles

Upstream propagation of shocks in supply chains: Evidence from earthquakes

AbstractWe investigate how natural disaster shocks to customers propagate upstream to suppliers’ investment. Using data from the major customers of Chinese listed firms and earthquake information during 2009–2019, we investigate the impact of customers’ earthquake exposure on corporate investment. We find that firms significantly reduce investment after their customers experience earthquakes, particularly for non‐state‐owned enterprises, firms with higher product uniqueness, firms in competitive industries, and firms in nondurable goods industries. Furthermore, our analysis highlights firms’ sales as one of the potential channels through which customers’ earthquake exposure influences firm investment. We also find that following an earthquake supplier firms reduce their transactions with the affected customers and develop alternative customers.

Intra-firm and Arm's Length Trade During the Global Financial Crisis: Evidence from Korean Manufacturing Firms

In this paper, we investigate and compare the different patterns of intra-firm trade and arm's length trade during the global financial crisis. Intra-firm trade refers to the cross-border flow of goods between related parties, and arm’s length trade refers to the cross-border flow of goods between unrelated parties. Using firm-level data from the Korean manufacturing sector from 2006 to 2009, we employ two approaches that complement each other, accounting decomposition and fixed effects regression analyses. Our accounting decomposition result reveals that aggregate-level intra-firm trade is more responsive to shocks during the global financial crisis compared to arm’s length trade, particularly in durable goods industries. The decline in intra-firm trade during the crisis is largely driven by extensive margins while the changes in arm’s length and total trade are largely driven by intensive margins. The fixed effects panel regression results show that firms’ involvement in the global value chain is the most significant determinant for the decline in a firm’s trade growth during the crisis, where the negative effect is stronger for arm’s length trade than for intra-firm trade, and is more pronounced in durable goods industries than in non-durable goods industries.

Mergers in durable-goods industries: A re-examination of market power and welfare effects

An important question from the standpoint of antitrust economics is, how do mergers in durable-goods industries differ from those in nondurable-goods industries from the perspective of welfare effects? Previous papers that have considered this issue employ an approach to modeling durable-goods markets that was popularized by Swan in the early 1970s in which new and used “service units” are perfect substitutes in consumption. We employ a modeling approach similar to those employed in later contributions by Anderson and Ginsburgh (1994), Waldman (1996a), and Hendel and Lizzeri (1999) which, more realistically, do not make the perfect substitutability assumption. Our analysis confirms the main result of the earlier literature which is that a competitively supplied stock of used units typically reduces the welfare loss associated with a durable-goods merger. However, we also show that in most cases this reduction is much smaller than found in Carlton and Gertner׳s (1989) classic analysis of the topic. The implication is that the antitrust authorities should be more concerned about mergers in durable-goods industries than the previous literature suggests.

Dynamic consistency and monopoly

A wide variety of papers study the time consistency issues and commitment problems associated with imperfectly competitive durable goods manufacturers who sell their output. Using a simple two-period model the authors show that this sort of commitment problem may occur even if the monopolist produces non-durable output. The model assumes consumers maximize their utility through the choice of a non-durable consumption good and saving through an asset that provides future returns and consumption flow. The analysis indicates that non-durable goods manufacturers with market power will wish to announce future prices that are sub-optimal (dynamically inconsistent) when the period is reached due to the impact on consumers' wealth constraint and current purchasing behavior. Thus, the so-called durable-goods monopoly commitment problem may also occur in non-durable goods industries. The model suggests that any type of intertemporal linkage may lead to time consistency and commitment problems for imperfectly competitive firms.

Scale effects, time-varying markups, and the cyclical behaviour of primal and dual productivity

This paper presents estimates of the degree of returns to scale using nonparametric measures of primal and dual productivity for 2-digit US manufacturing industries. As part of the analysis, the cyclical behaviour of primal and dual productivity measures are considered, time-varying markups are allowed for, and the small sample properties of the instrumental variables estimator used to derive the estimates from the primal and dual relations examined. Both the primal and dual estimates indicate the existence of increasing returns to scale for the durable goods industries. The simulation results indicate there is a slight tendency for the dual equation estimates to overestimate the degree of returns to scale. However, small sample bias appears to be most severe for the non-durable goods industries.

Mergers in Durable Goods Markets with Rational Customers

The existing literature on mergers in durable goods industries suggests that such mergers will produce much less harm to consumer welfare in the first few years following the merger than mergers in non-durable goods industries, particularly if the pre-merger stock can be kept in service for a while through such things as additional maintenance. However, this understanding is based on models that do not adequately consider rational behavior on the part of customers. Once customers expectations are taken into account, mergers can have significant price effects in the first few years. Both vertical integration into aftermarket parts and services and the prospect of future entry can reduce the effect of the merger on new good prices. Nevertheless, even incorporating these factors there is still the potential for large near term price effects.

Structural Instability and the Production-Smoothing Model of Inventories

The production-smoothing model of inventories implies that inventories, labor inputs, sales, and factor input prices are cointegrated if sales and factor prices are I(1) with one cointegrating vector for each state variable held. These propositions are tested in six nondurable-goods industries. All industries provide evidence of cointegration. Fewer quasi-fixed factors are found than previous research often assumed. Estimates of cointegrating vectors provide implausible parameter estimates. Rank stability tests, with fixed or seqentially chosen breakpoints, indicate that the cointegrating matrix has unstable rank. Parameter estimates of cointegrating vectors do not provide much support for the production-smoothing model of inventories.

Durable goods and horizontal merger analysis

Merger analysis based on standard HHI calculations generally may not fully consider the impact of product durability and hence may significantly bias enforcement efforts. Using an inverse demand equation modified to include a shift parameter linked to the installed base, this paper develops a Durability Adjusted HHI (DAHHI) measure of concentration. DAHHI analysis exposes two potential biases in standard HHI analysis: excessive enforcement in durable goods industries is likely using standard HHI analysis, and Merger Guidelines' thresholds are set too high for non-durable goods industries and too low for durable goods industries. Using the DAHHI methodology, the paper proposes corrections to both biases.

Investment, Cash Flow, and Sunk Costs

This paper's analysis of U.S. manufacturing industries confirms previous research showing that cash flow and investment spending are positively correlated, even after controlling for investment demand, and it makes two new points as well: firstly, that the effect of cash flow on investment is greater for durable goods industries than for nondurable goods industries and, secondly, that cash flow's effect is significantly larger in industries with high sunk costs than in those with low sunk costs. The latter finding suggests that external financing of capital investment is more difficult when the assets being financed are highly specific or are sunk. Copyright 1995 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

A Model for Predicting Advertising Expenditures: An Inter-Industry Comparison

The purpose of this study was to determine and predict average industry advertising expenditures. The study focused on consumer non-durable goods industries, since advertising is their primary promotion tool. A model was developed incorporating variables that may affect advertising expenditures such as sales, net income, advertising expenditures, working capital, GNP, and Personal Consumption. The model was estimated using multiple regression analysis. Data was gathered on fifteen industries from the Compustat base. The results indicated statistically significant models in all industries, with high explanatory power. The study found that average industry advertising expenditures can be determined and predicted based on past years' average advertising expenditures, average profits, personal consumption, and GNP. This conclusion reinforces at the industry-level evidence, already existing at the company level, that advertising budgets are not based on the above-mentioned factors. Finally, the study predicted...

Trends, Random Walks and Persistence: An Empirical Study of Disaggregated U.S. Industrial Production

Unit-root and variance-ratio tests are used to examine the trend properties and degree of persistence of industrial production in U.S. industries and comparable aggregates during the post-World War II period. The evidence from unit-root tests suggests that less than one-half of these industries have output that may be characterized as a random walk. The variance-ratio test results generally support this conclusion. Consistent with standard economic theory, fluctuations in durable-goods industries are less persistent than in nondurable goods industries. Finally, tests find relatively greater persistence in the aggregate industrial production data. Copyright 1992 by MIT Press.

Wages and Foreign Trade

THIS paper summarizes the results of an exploratory study of wage levels in relation to the foreign trade of the United States.' Attention is concentrated on manufacturing industries, although mining and agriculture are also included. The broad conclusion is that export industries tend to pay higher wages than importcompeting industries (i.e., the industrial classifications within which the largest volume of competitive imports fall). Within the manufacturing sector, the difference is associated with the higher wages paid by durable goods industries as compared with nondurable goods industries; that is, a large part of the difference is connected with the fact that the proportion of durable goods industries is higher among the leading export industries than among the leading import-competing industries. Even greater wage differences are found when the leading export industries are compared with industries producing commodities most vulnerable to further import competition or with industries producing goods that are competitive with highly protected imports. Relatively higher wages have characterized exported manufactures for over half a century. The same tendency for average wages in the export group to exceed those of the import-competing group is found in the mining and agricultural sectors, but for agriculture the analysis of wages in relation to foreign trade is much more tentative. The reconciliation of foreign trade statistics with data on wages, employment, and production for the years I947 and I952 had been accomplished by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in connection with its input-output studies.2 Average hourly earnings, which are used as the measure of wages,3 are either calculated from Census data or taken from B.L.S. estimates. For agriculture, however, there was no source of hourly earnings data, and, as is explained in the section on agriculture, the author has employed a makeshift method based on data of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics.