A History of the Pan-Pacific Coal Trade from the 1950s to 2011: Exploring the Long-term Effects of a Buying Cartel
Author(s)
Bowden, Bradley
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2012
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Since the early-1960s the Pan-Pacific coal trade has underpinned East Asia's industrial development. While the genesis of this trade lay in investment decisions by United States-based companies who pioneered exports from Australian and western Canadian mines, its development was largely shaped by the strategies of the Japanese steel mills who acted as a buying cartel. By the early 1980s this cartel had engineered an oversupplied market characterised by constantly falling prices. By 2001, however, this strategy proved counter-productive, as exports of coking coal in particular were concentrated in the hands of an oligopoly ...
View more >Since the early-1960s the Pan-Pacific coal trade has underpinned East Asia's industrial development. While the genesis of this trade lay in investment decisions by United States-based companies who pioneered exports from Australian and western Canadian mines, its development was largely shaped by the strategies of the Japanese steel mills who acted as a buying cartel. By the early 1980s this cartel had engineered an oversupplied market characterised by constantly falling prices. By 2001, however, this strategy proved counter-productive, as exports of coking coal in particular were concentrated in the hands of an oligopoly of super-efficient producers that drove up prices.
View less >
View more >Since the early-1960s the Pan-Pacific coal trade has underpinned East Asia's industrial development. While the genesis of this trade lay in investment decisions by United States-based companies who pioneered exports from Australian and western Canadian mines, its development was largely shaped by the strategies of the Japanese steel mills who acted as a buying cartel. By the early 1980s this cartel had engineered an oversupplied market characterised by constantly falling prices. By 2001, however, this strategy proved counter-productive, as exports of coking coal in particular were concentrated in the hands of an oligopoly of super-efficient producers that drove up prices.
View less >
Journal Title
Australian Economic History Review
Volume
52
Issue
1
Subject
Applied economics
Economic history
Organisation and management theory
History and philosophy of specific fields