ABSTRACT
The iron and steel industry takes many forms of industrial organization in the capitalist world. Free enterprise is the basic form in Japan and the United States, while Britain has adopted a public corporation system, and the European Community nations more or less promote steelmakers' reorganization. In view of the steel industry's broad range of business activities, the chapter deals mainly with the integrated steelmakers and examine their production activities from pig iron to crude steel, with particular emphasis on their investment behavior, production adjustment, and pricing decisions. Access to supplies of iron ores or other raw materials raises no problem in Japan, however, for since the war Japanese steel mills have imported iron ores from any markets abroad. As for production technology, Japanese steel production is based on foreign technologies acquired from other nations–for example, blast-furnace technology from the United States and West Germany, converter technology from Austria, and strip-mill technology from the United States.
