Costs and Productivity in Automobile Production: The Challenge of Japanese Efficiency

Melvyn A. Fuss; Leonard Waverman

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511528477

Motor vehicles are prominent among the flows of exports and imports for Canada, Germany, Japan and the United States, and these trade flows are heavily influenced by the basic relative competitiveness of the production processes for automotive manufacturing. In this book the authors analyse in depth the factors that contributed to the comparative cost competitiveness of the four countries' auto industries over the period 1961–84, and disentangle the factors contributing to the Japanese cost and efficiency advantages. Their main contribution is to provide estimates of comparative costs of automobile production (both short-run and long-run) and the sources of these cost differences, based on the econometric cost-function methodology. An innovation is the careful treatment of capacity utilization, one of the most important sources of short-run cost and efficiency differences. This methodology is also used effectively in an analysis of the Canada-US Auto Pact, a unique experiment in trade liberalization.

"...useful to readers who want a good and in-depth understanding of the industry in these countries." Kar-Yiu Wong, Journal of Japanese Studies

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Costs and Productivity in Automobile Production

The Challenge of Japanese Efficiency

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-vi

Contents
pp vii-x

Preface
pp xi-xii

Chapter 1 - Introduction
pp 1-16

Chapter 2 - International differences in output, productivity, and wages in the automobile industry: the 1950s to the mid-1980s
pp 17-63

Chapter 3 - The cost-function approach to the analysis of cost and total factor productivity differences
pp 64-79

Chapter 4 - Data base sources and method of construction
pp 80-115

Chapter 5 - Empirical results: estimation of the cost function
pp 116-130

Chapter 6 - Productivity growth in the automobile industry, 1970–1984: a comparison of the United States, Japan, Germany, and Canada
pp 131-141

Chapter 7 - International comparisons of automobile industry cost and productivity levels: Japan, Germany, and the United States
pp 142-165

Chapter 8 - International comparisons of automobile industry cost and productivity levels: Canadian with U.S., Japanese, and German production
pp 166-212

Chapter 9 - Summary and conclusions
pp 213-232

References
pp 233-236

Index
pp 237-241

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Costs and Productivity in Automobile Production

The Challenge of Japanese Efficiency

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