World steel production has grown dramatically as countriesindustrialize and add their own steel-producing capacity. China’sprodigious expansion of steel output has increased theindustry’s natural vulnerability to oversupply and volatile prices.And the merger of the two largest steelmakers, Arcelor and Mittal,portends consolidation as a prime strategy for diversification andstabilization. This book examines the competition and survivalstrategies of the integrated steel industry from various vantage pointsincluding cost structures and technology, export pricing strategies,the economics of trade protection, Paul Krugman’s NobelPrize-winning explanation of industrial diffusion and trade, and theprospects of cooperating closely with automakers. The industry’sfuture, Big Steel shows, is cosmopolitan.
