Competition in the Rayon Industry

This is the first in a series of studies on competition and monopoly in American industry financed by a grant from the Merrill Foundation for the Advancement of Financial Knowledge. The series has been planned to include a number of studies focusing on the effectiveness of competition in particular industrial markets accompanied by certain investigations into the effect on competition of various elements of market structure and business practice common to many industries. Although each volume is an independent study representing only the views of its author, all are expected to contribute to the central objective of the whole project: an evaluation of monopoly policy in the United States. χ PREFACE establish with finality than the presence of monopoly. The discovery of a single monopoly restraint in an industry prevents it from being classified among the highly competitive ones, whereas the discovery of a large number of competitive forces does not prove the absence of monopoly. Nevertheless, I have selected the present title because I believe conditions in the rayon industry to have more nearly conformed with the precepts of competition than with those of monopoly. I therefore believe it to be more descriptive than one implicative of fairly strong monopoly forces. J. W. M. PREFACE CONTENTS CHARTS TABLES 1. INTRODUCTION to the Problem 2. DEVELOPMENT AND STRUCTURE of the Rayon Yarn Industry in the United States 3. THE RELATIONSHIP between the Size and Number of Producers in the Domestic Rayon Industry 4. RAYON PRICE and Product Composition and Terms of Trade 5. PRICE BEHAVIOR among Firms 6. OLIGOPOLY THEORY and the Domestic Rayon Industry 7. SHORT-RUN MOVEMENTS Cycles, and Trends in Rayon Price and Output 8. SHORT-RUN AND LONG-RUN Rayon Price Determinants 9. PROFITS, INVESTMENT, and Prices 10. THE WORKABILITY OF Competition in the Domestic Rayon Industry APPENDICES APPENDIX A. Recent Developments in the Domestic Rayon Industry APPENDIX B. Organizations and Associations Jointly Sponsored by Domestic Rayon Yarn Producers APPENDIX C. Methodology and Statistical Computations APPENDIX D. Tables BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX