tailieunhanh - Production and Cost in the U.S. Paper and Paperboard Industry

In the subsequent section, we commence with the description of environmental inno- vation types and how these types are addressed in our analysis. Section 3 reviews the litera- ture on trends and determinants pertaining to the shift from end-of-pipe to cleaner production. Section 4 provides a descriptive summary of our data set. In Section 5, we analyze the deci- sion between end-of-pipe and cleaner production technologies using a multinomial discrete choice model. Section 6 uses the same variables to investigate whether determinants regard- ing the introduction of cleaner processes and products differ from each other. The final sec- tion concludes this study. . | Production and Cost in the . Paper and Paperboard Industry Patrick McCarthy School of Economics and Center for Paper Business and Industry Studies Georgia Institute of Technology and Aselia Urmanbetova School of Public Policy Georgia Institute of Technology CPBIS Working Paper Abstract The United States paper and paperboard industry has experienced significant structural changes over the past twenty-five years including reductions in the number of mills lower rates of capacity growth employment cutbacks and a loss of market share to foreign competitors. These structural shifts portray an industry that increasingly has difficulty adapting to a more competitive global environment. Based on aggregate data from 1965-1996 this paper estimates a short run translog cost function for the industry. The estimated model fits the data well and all sample points satisfy monotonicity and concavity conditions at all points. Among the findings the industry operates at slightly increasing returns to capital utilization and labor and energy are Allen-Uzawa complements but Morishima substitutes in production. Technological progress generated reduction in annual operating costs and consistent with an ailing . industry estimated marginal costs approximated average operating costs until 1982 after which marginal costs significantly diverged from average operating costs. JEL D2 L11 L25 L67 L73 July 2008 revised Please do not cite or quote without the explicit permission of the authors. 1 I. Introduction During the past quarter century the . paper and paperboard industry has undergone significant structural changes. The total number of paper and paperboard mills decreased from 351 to 220 . Census Bureau http econ census02 data industry between 1967 and 1997 with the number of large integrated mills decreasing and experiencing a 65 survival rate during the period. Average annual capacity growth in paper paperboard and market pulp fell from in .