Americans continually cross paths with major industries that comprise the U.S. economy. These industries face and raise challenging issues that in turn generate important economic questions: How are individual industries organized and structured? What share of their market do they represent? What are the major public policy issues they affect? What are the economic consequences of addressing them? A single text examining every industry would provide a disjointed, haphazard analysis. The case-study approach taken in The Structure of American Industry avoids such shortcomings. The expert author of each case studyfourteen in allpresents a comprehensive and coherent analysis of a specific industry. The holistic, in-depth treatment sparks lively interest, does not succumb to theoretical abstractions, and offers practical answers to economic questions.

The major American industries—agriculture, petroleum, electricity, banking, telecommunications, movies, college sports, airlines, health care, and the beer, cigarette, and automotive industries—intersect our lives every day. Studying these industries raises a number of economic questions: How are the individual industries organized and structured? What is their history? What are the dominant organizations in each field, and what share of their market do they represent? What is the nature of competition in these fields, and how effectively does it govern economic decision making? The nature of these industries also raises a host of public policy challenges: What significant policy issues do they pose, what options are available for addressing them, and what role can and should the government play? Unlike other books that offer economic treatments focused on theoretical expositions and analyses, the thirteenth edition addresses all these questions in a manner that treats each industry in a comprehensive, holistic way. Brock’s approach focuses on everyday experience, enhancing readers’ understanding through examples that emphasize incident and detail. Each chapter, written by an expert in the field, has been updated or rewritten for this edition. A new chapter on the movie industry has been added as well. This outstanding overview of American industry offers the reader a live laboratory of clinical examination and comparative analysis.

This book addresses the crucial question of America's adjustment to changes in the international economy. It examines policies that will deal effectively with the continuing erosion of the U.S. share of exports and production in world markets and explores in particular the debate on "industrial policy."

Once unquestionably the world's leading economic and industrial power, the United States now views with growing dismay the impressive industrial efficiency, vigorous work ethics, and large American holdings of various other nations. Is the United States truly lagging in its ability to compete effectively in world markets? Concern over this question has been voiced in both the business and government sectors, as well as by academic economists. A recent conference, sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, explored the effects of trade policies on a nation's ability to compete in international markets. In Trade Policies for International Competitiveness, Robert C. Feenstra collects seven papers from the conference, each accompanied by discussants' comments, and adds a helpful introduction. Some of the issues considered by contributors are effects of macroeconomic and strategic foreign policies on competitiveness; the recent influx of foreign direct investment in the United States, primarily from Japan; the extent to which Japanese trade patterns are a reflection of underlying factor and endowments rather than trade barriers; and the market structure of Canadian industries, including applications for ongoing U.S.-Canadian free trade negotiations. Topical and provocative, these papers will be of value to economists, policymakers, and those in the business world.

The increasing globalization of production and the conservative agenda for market-led growth are dramatically affecting the life of the average Canadian and the choices made by social and economic policy makers. As Daniel Drache, Meric Gertler, and the contributing authors show, the worldwide reorganization of markets poses new challenges for domestic industry while continental trade initiatives threaten the livelihood of Canadian workers and the stability of communities across all regions of the country. Environmental quality is similarly at risk from development strategies driven more by possibilities of short-term gain from export sales than by attempts to promote long-term sustainability.

Originally published in 1985 by a group of international experts and oil industry officials, this book surveys the dramatic changes which took place in the oil industry in the second half of the twentieth century. It discusses the role of OPEC and the long term impact its decisions had for both producers and oil consumers and examines possible future trends in the oil industry structure and stability, together with the possible consequences for North Sea oil and gas development.