This book provides a basic guide to the iron and steel industry in a single convenient reference source. The origins of steel and its manufacture are explained first, with a basic outline of the principal steel grades. The author then goes on to look at production and consumption and its commercial significance. He also analyses the global trade in steel and shows its importance to the metals industry as alloying elements and coatings. The final section considers the future for steel, the changing trade patterns, environmental issues and the threat of substitutes to the industry.

There can be few industries which have generated as much political controversy as the world steel industry. Since 1968 the trade policies of both the US and the EEC have created a vicious circle of protectionism and delayed adjustment in their steel industries. In particular, protectionist policies by one government have tended to lead directly to rebound protectionist policies by the other. This book, first published in 1986, begins by tracing the historical roots of steel protectionism and describes the changing competitive structure of the world steel market which has led to increased government involvement in the traditional steel-making countries as they became vulnerable to imports from the newly industrialised countries. The most distinctive feature of the book is its economic analysis of a policy crisis; a crisis whose inner dynamics work against a viable solution.

World steel production has grown dramatically as countries industrialize and add their own steel-producing capacity. China's prodigious expansion of steel output has increased the industry'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 and stabilization. This book examines the competition and survival strategies of the integrated steel industry from various vantage points including cost structures and technology, export pricing strategies, the economics of trade protection, Paul Krugman's Nobel Prize-winning explanation of industrial diffusion and trade, and the prospects of cooperating closely with automakers. The industry's future, Big Steel shows, is cosmopolitan.

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Economics - Industrial Economics, grade: 1,0, The FOM University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, language: English, abstract: What are the consequences of steel tariffs on the Chinese steel industry and its development? Coping with this question a deeper look at the Chinese steel industry is needed. First, this paper will outline the history and examine statistics dealing with the global steel market in order to center the growth and structure of the Chinese steel industry. The second part of this paper highlights tariffs, their function and influence on the market in general and especially on the Chinese steel industry. Finally, derived from previously examined facts, the tariffs’ consequences on the industry are discussed concluding with a future outlook. Since 2014, China is the second largest economy in the world, following the United States of America, comparing the countries’ gross domestic products. China’s steel industry dominates the global steel market, taking nearly half of the world’s production into account. In 2015, the country is the biggest exporter of semi-finished and finished steel products. Latest developments show a lowering and stagnating overall growth in China. This forces higher steel exports and puts pressure on the global steel price, leading to clamours for taxing Chinese steel imports in other countries. The U.S. and European Union (EU) among other countries have already confined tariffs on Chinese steel, aiming to protect their local steel industry.