The Development of Continuous Casting in the U. S. Steel Industry: Comment

Abstract

In a recent article, Professor Ault has stated that: studies of the steel industry during the fifties and early sixties have indicated that the major cause of the deterioration of the ability of the U.S. industry to compete was the failure of increases in the productivity of US. steel workers to keep pace with increases in the wages and benefits paid to those workers. One of the principal causes for this lag in productivity was the failure of major U.S. producers to adopt the Basic Oxygen Furnace as rapidly as major foreign producers…despite the fact that the Oxygen converter proved to be capable of producing basic steel products at lower unit cost than any other production technique.

The Efficient Diffusion of Steel Technology Across Nations

“…N O T E S 1. These articles have led to a number of rejoinders, e.g., McAdams (1967), Dilley and McBride (1967) and Huettner (1974). 2.…”

An Analysis of the Historical Choice Among Technologies in the U.S. Steel Industry: Contributions from a Linear Programming Model”

“…In applying the criterion or its twin, the minimum of the present value of costs, one must, of course, make sure that the period of which the alternatives will operate is the same for all. 10. "Worn out" means that maintenance costs for the existing steel furnace technology have, because of its age, followed an upward gradient to the point that they approach the average total cost of a new steel furnace of the same type.…”

“…However, their unmodified position seems to have been incorporated into the conventional economic wisdom, serving as a springboard for further criticism of the u.s. industry's observed rate of adoption of another, more recent, innovation: continuous casting (3,6,10].…”