Profitability and Concentration in Australian Manufacturing Industries:A Reply

This brief note takes the adjusted profitability data series suggested by Leech and Grant, and shows that the weak and generally not strongly significant effect which concentration has on such profitability data (as shown by Leech and Grant) becomes even weaker and less significant when the model is more appropriately specified to include a capital-output variable.     

Profitability and Concentration in Australian Manufacturing Industries 1970-71 to 1972-73:A Further Examination*

In a recent issue of the Economic Record, D. K. Round found that, using I.A.C. data for 32 industries for the period 1970-71 to 1972–1973, sales-based measures of profitability were linked positively and significantly with concentration, but that funds-based measures showed a negative relationship. In this paper, the I AC profitability ratios are adjusted from an historical cost to a current value basis. Regressions of the adjusted profitability ratios on concentration, over the period 1970-71 to 1972-73, conflict with Round's finding that the concentration coefficient using net profit/sales was significant, and a much weaker relationship is found with all of the regressions that used adjusted, as compared to unadjusted, I AC profitability ratios.     

The Impact of Productivity Growth on the Costs of Production in Australian Manufacturing Industries*

The primary objective of this study is to examine the impact of technological progress on costs of production in 34 Australian manufacturing industries. An analytical model incorporating the notion of factor-augmenting technological change was developed and applied to each industry. The results indicated that in most of the industries technological progress during the period 1954–55 to 1981–82 had been biased towards augmenting labour and thereby reducing the cost of labour per unit of production. The implication of the analysis is that there is a nexus between incomes policy and the rate and bias of factor-augmenting technological change.     

Trends in Market Concentration of Australian Industries

A host of industrialised countries have seen concentration in their industries grow. This trend is fuelling concerns about falling competition. This article focuses on the changing pattern of market concentration in Australia from 2002 to 2017. On average, market concentration has been rising. However, beneath the aggregate statistics, the pattern is rather mixed, with concentration falling in several sectors. The study also detects a pattern of strong productivity growth alongside a shift towards capital intensive operation and increasing trade where concentration is growing. Overall, the implications of these findings point to the possibility that rising market concentration in some industries is technology driven and not due to a lack of competition.     

Pricing in Australian Manufacturing*

The rate of change of prices of competing foreign products and the rate of change of costs of domestic production are both found to have positive impact on the rate of domestic price inflation in a cross section of Australian manufacturing industries over the period from 1968-69 to 1986-87. Prices of competing foreign products are found to have more impact, while production costs are found to have less impact, the higher is the level of domestic concentration, supporting the hypothesis that foreign and domestic competition have interactive effects on domestic prices.     

Structural Changes in Australian Manufacturing Industry*

The paper uses a neoclassical production function and historical data to test for structural stability in Australian manufacturing industry. The production function is an extended constant elasticity of substitution form in which factor substitution elasticity, returns to scale and market structure in output, capital and labour are testable hypotheses. Tests for structural changes in homogeneity and factor substitution elasticity relations are based on overall and individual tests of covariance analysis and also on a special version of the Swerling-Kalman filtering systems as proposed by Cooley and Prescott. The empirical findings possess desirable statistical properties and indicate the existence of structural instability in the industry. The evidence also repudiates the assumptions of unitary factor substitution elasticity, constant returns to scale and market competitiveness in output and factors of production.     

Transport Cost and Tariff Protection of Australian Manufacturing*

This paper provides estimates of transport cost and tariff protection available to import-competing Australian manufacturing industries. It finds that transport costs provide an important component of total protection available to such industries; one which, for many, is more important than the Australian tariff. In view of the effects of protection on industrial structure and performance, it should be explicitly recognized that transport costs are an unavoidable element of the protective structure and are deserving of study in their own right.     

An Australian Housing Model*

A 13-equation model is developed which captures the essential economic features of the housing industry in Australia. The importance of speculative builders and investors is recognized. Empirical results are presented for two key equations. The asset price of existing dwellings (including land) owned by persons is explained by a portfolio choice or generalized asset adjustment model. This asset price then feeds in as a determinant of new private construction, along with construction costs of new dwellings, financial variables and a measure of demand-supply imbalance.     

The Speed and Stability of Price Adjustment in Australian Manufacturing*

A model of industry speed of price adjustment is derived from firm pricing behaviour. The model is applied to quarterly two‐digit Australian manufacturing data for the period 1985 (Q3) to 2002 (Q3). The results suggest that the industry speed of price adjustment is positively related to the average size of large firms within the industry and is negatively related to industry concentration. We also find that import share has a role in attenuating the effects of industry concentration and that growth in a moving average of real gross domestic product reduces the speed of price adjustment. Calculated industry speeds of price adjustment are both stable across the period of examination and small, suggesting that manufacturing prices are sticky.     

The Australian Business Cycle: Its Definition and Existence*

Recent research has suggested that for a number of economies, aggregate output does not behave in a stationary way about a fixed trend Campbell and Mankiw have provided much evidence, and their techniques are adopted here to indicate that Australia's national output has behaved in a way similar to that of other similar economies.     

Australian Business Investment: A New Look at the Neoclassical Approach*

This paper attempts to reconcile neoclassical theory with Australian investment data. We argue that, by focusing almost exclusively on the demand for capital services, neoclassical investment theory neglects two related decisions: the decision to own the existing capital stock, and the decision to produce new capital goods. We propose a simple model of investment behaviour that integrates production decisions with portfolio decisions. Careful consideration is given to the determination of the price of capital, the rental price of capital, and the return on capital. The model is estimated by FIML, and a number of simulation results are reported.     

Further Evidence from Survey Data on Australian Manufacturing Price Changes*

Three data sets from two different quarterly surveys have been used in estimating six standard models of price change behaviour. Results for Total Manufacturing Industry, for all three data sets, show prices respond to both actual cost movements and commodity market excess demand conditions. For most ASIC two-digit industries, prices respond rapidly to actual cost movements, and for many industries they also respond directly to excess demand conditions. No single excess demand measure is appropriate for all industries. The magnitude of orders and inventories influences is very small, but capacity utilization contributions seem far from trivial. Industry results are frequently sensitive to the survey used and/or to the method used to weight individual firm's responses.     

Factor Substitutability in Australian Manufacturing with Emphasis on Energy Inputs*

In this paper a model of the production structure in the aggregate Australian manufacturing sector is estimated, emphasizing the use this sector makes of energy inputs. A translog cost function is estimated with time-series data for four inputs, capital services, labour services, energy and materials and likewise an energy submodel is estimated for solid fuels, oil, electricity and gas. The substitutabilily and the complementarity relationships between the various factor inputs and between the various fuels are examined: an interesting finding is that capital and energy are substitutes and labour and energy are complements. Factor price elasticities are calculated and turn out to be quite significant. The study concludes that rising energy prices will induce significant shifts in both the mix of fuel inputs and the level of aggregate energy utilization.