THE GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING OF THE STEEL INDUSTRY The steel indu str y is one of man y major wo rld ind ustries extensively restructured in this era of globalization. The Global Restructuring of the Steel Industry explains how and why the steel industry has shifted from advanced capitalist c ountr ies to late industrializing c ountr ies. Drawing upon case studies of the steel industry in the US, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and India, Anthony P.D'Costa examines the relationship between industrial change and institutional responses to technological diffusion. He reveals that governments' and firm s' differing responses to innovations lead to an uneven diffusion of technology and industrial reorganization. Moreover, when it becomes clear that existing institutional a rra ngements no longer serve the industry well, new a rra ngements are made which allow for innovative beh aviour. O fte n th is has cr e at ed oppo rt uni ties f or t echn ol ogical "leapfrogging" and the emergence of new technologies in unexpected places. The steel industry has consequently kn own a new dynamism and the open- ended n atur e of capitalist c omp etition has been firmly und erscored. The Global Restructuring of the Steel Industry is a timely addition to the literature of world industries and offers valuable insights into the new dynamics of industrial capitalism in the globalized age. Anthon y P.D 'Co sta is Associate P rof essor of Comparative Int ern ational Devel opm ent at the University ofWashington, Tacoma, USA. He has written on ind ustrial restructuring in Asia, Latin America and the US and is curr ently researching technology leapfr ogging in the Indian sof twa re industry. ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AND THE WORLD ECONOMY 1 STATES AND FIRMS Multinational enterprises in institutional competition Razeen Sally 2 MULTINATIONAL RESTRUCTURING, INTERNATIONALIZATION AND SMALL ECONO MIES The Swedish case Thomas Andersson, Torbiorn Fredriksson and Roger Svensson 3 FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTM ENT AND GOVE RN MEN TS Catalysts for economic restructuring Edited by John H.Dunning and Rajneesh Naru la 4 MULTINATIONAL INVESTMENT AND ECONO MIC STRUCTURE Globalization and competitiveness Rajneesh Narula 5 ENT REPRENEURSHIP IN A GLOBAL CONTEX T Edited by Sue Birley and Ian Macmillan 6 THE GLOBAL STRUCTURE OF FINANCIAL MARKETS An overview Edited by Dilip K.Ghosh and Edgar Ortiz 7 ALLIANCE CAPITALISM AND GLOBAL BUSINESS John H.D unning 8 MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISESFROM THE NE THE RLANDS Edited by Roger van Haese! and Rajneesh Naru la 9 COMPETIT ION, G ROWTH STRATEGIES AND THE GLOBALIZAT ION OF SERVICES Real estate advisory services in Japan, Euro pe and the United States Terrence LaPier 10 EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN THE EU The case of the Korean consumer electronics industry Sang Hyup Shin 11 NEW MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISESFROM KOREA AND TAIWAN Roger van Haese! 12 COMPETITIVE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPM ENT IN THE AGE OF INF ORM ATION The role of co-operation in the technology sector Edited by Richard ].Braudo and Je ff rey G.Macintosh 13 TH E GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING OF TH E STEEL IND USTRY Innovations, institutions and industrial change Anthony P. D 'Costa 14 PRIVATISAT ION AND LIBERALISATION IN EUROPEAN TELEC OMMU NICATIONS Comparing Britain, the Netherlan ds and France Willem Hulsink THE GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING OF THE STEEL INDUSTRY Innovations, institutions and industrial change Anthony P.D-'Costa London and New York First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 200 3. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routl edge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1999 Anth ony P.D'Costa All rights reserved. No p art of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any f orm or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now kno wn or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, witho ut permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A cata logue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data D' Costa, Anth ony P., 195 7- The global restructuring of the steel industry: innovations, institutions, and indu strial change/Anth ony P.D'Costa. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Steel industry and trade. 2. Steel ind ustry and trad e- Government policy. 1. Title. HD 9510 .5.D38 1999 338 .47669 142 D c21 98- 276 03 CIP ISBN 0-203-42522-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-445 94-5 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-14827-8 (Print Edition) TO AVERIC, CAMILLE, AND THEIR GRANDPARENTS [...]... and downs in demand, the need for large firms in the industry becomes a matter of sheer common sense The controllers of the US industry realized it better than others, and through mergers they created the first billion-dollar firm in the world, the US Steel Corporation After that, the steel industry in the US went from strength to strength and emerged as the leading producer of steel, with a very big... and acquiring steel mills in M exico, Ca na da, Ir eland , Ge rma ny, and Kazakh st an Entrepren eur ial ism and innova tions in the steel indu stry are alive and well in new and often unexpected places 1 THE RESTRU CTURI N G OF THE STEEL INDUSTRY The 1980s also marked the en d of the tradition of the state-owned steel industry The aggressive privatization of Brazil's integrated steel industry initiated... entered the fray, making the industry even more competitive The restructuring has taken on a new direction as several smaller firms with new technologies challenge the established industry with low cost output This chapter confirms the centrality of innovations in the open-ended capitalist industrial system 9 THE RESTRU CTURING OF THE STEEL INDUSTRY Rather than summarize the salient dynamics of the industry' s... industrializing their countries, therefore, have paid special attention to the development of an indigenous steel industry This book provides a fascinating analysis of the reasons for the staggering success of the post-World War II Japanese steel industry until it was overtaken in international competitiveness by the Korean industry, and also a connected account of the much more mixed record of the Brazilian... on the direction of further restructuring 10 2 AN INSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION OF STEEL INDUSTRY RESTRUCTURING An analytical framework Introduction The objective of this study is to explain the global reorganization of the steel industry, away from advanced capitalist centers to newly emerging ones Rather than simply viewing this process as a consequence of changing economic forces, I show that the. .. imbalances in plant and equipment The fourth chapter introduces the rapid expansion of the steel industries in Japan and Korea The two countries are paired to examine the "fastsecond" approach at work The historical background of technological 8 THE RESTRUCTURING OF THE STEEL INDUSTRY capability is also examined The chapter shows that competitiveness can be changed by waves of investment in modern technologies... regulation to the background The seventh chapter presents new innovations in the industry as the basis for another round of restructuring Modern minimills capable of producing steel cheaply have opened up opportunities for entrepreneurs The diffusion of this technology is discussed in terms of comparative costs-both capital and operating-and product markets In keeping with the reduced role of the state, these... Persuasive as they seem, these explanations are inadequate to account for the changes in the steel industry Steel is neither a low-wage product nor is its price determined by the logic of the market There is very little multinational ownership of the industry In addition, government intervention has been common, distorting prices in significant ways If changing comparative advantage is indeed behind the industry' s... The history of industrialization is replete with such exam ples Which new technologies ar e develop ed and why th ey develop introduce further elements of strategic choice in an otherwise highly abstract capitalist system (see Ruigrok 5 THE RESTRUCTURING OF THE STEEL INDUSTRY and van Tulder 1995) It is not the systemic nature of innovative behavior that is of interest here, but rather the effects of. .. Bank of India Professor Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta XVI ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To write a book on the steel industry at the turn of the twenty-first century might seem like academic lunacy After all, steel was the heavyweight of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century industrial capitalism in Britain and the US With the proliferation of high-tech industries in our time, steel . THE GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING OF THE STEEL INDUSTRY The steel indu str y is one of man y major wo rld ind ustries extensively restructured in this era of globalization. The Global Restructuring of. erscored. The Global Restructuring of the Steel Industry is a timely addition to the literature of world industries and offers valuable insights into the new dynamics of industrial capitalism in the globalized. internationalization of the steel industry 119 Introduction 119 US imports and the changing international division of labor 120 Cost of production and labor productivity 125 Global realignments in the steel industry