At times I travel to varied and sundry automotive suppliers, plus the occasional conference. So here’s why I need my hard drive. http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/ Of course…
Author: Mike
Prof of Economics, Wms School of Commerce, Washington and Lee University, Lexington VA
Financial Times Jean Tirole Interview. OPEC and the Price Leader Model: The political economy of Saudi Arabia’s oil policy in today’s energy market Price Leadership…
Further to our discussion of spurious differentiation, here’s a note on why people buy branded instead of generic over-the-counter medications. We’ll look at advertising later…
Yes, Apple launched the iPhone in China. The market, however, is droids: about 300 million are in use (and another 400 million have been exported).…
This is a sentence just to show what happens and hopefully not illustrate that I’m a high-speed, high errors-per-minute typist. some text This is a…
Economics 243 Fall 2014: Industrial Organization, the Economics of Strategic Behavior MWF 1:25 pm – 2:20 pm Huntley 220 Does the proposed merger of Burger…
Respect your peers – comment on their Posts New Posts Disabled [except for those by the prof] until the class is next taught [tentatively] in…
In October 2013 sales in China reached 1.92 million units – see the China Auto Industry Association statistics page for details. That’s just shy of a 24 million unit rate, and is surely the largest number of vehicles ever sold in a single market in a month. For GM, sales were 282,000 units – 25% more than US sales that month. Everyone is in the market, or preparing to enter there. The Korean neighbors (Kia and Hyundai, but also Daewoo as part of GM), Japan (or at least the Japan Three of Toyota, Honda and Nissan, and Mazda and Suzuki), Germany (BMW, Mercedes, VW), the Detroit Three and now the French, both PSA and Renault. A host of local firms continue, though most as paper entities. Still, Great Wall, Chery, Geely, BYD, Changan and others.
This raises a host of questions. I focus on two: geography and profitability. I frame my brief analysis using the perspective of the OEMs. Since more and more value added lies with suppliers, that may lead to inappropriate conclusions, but for now I will accept the status quo terms of debate.
In class I chatted about the challenge of funding basic science in a world of which the US is an ever-smaller slice.Note 1 The economic…
Currently there are 3 players – a fourth is now trying to enter. How are the incumbents fairing? – in general not well. So is…