Service industries and service economy

The study analyses the role of services in modern and less-developed economies. It shows the different meanings of the value, definition and classification of service activities found in economic literature. It discusses the relation between service production growth and economic development observing the role of these activities in the dynamics of economic restructuring. Further, it also examines the differences between private and public sector service restructuring and the consequences of internationalization of services. It concludes that economic restructuring also caused by changes in the nature of goods and services has important regional effects.

Inferring conduct under the threat of entry : the case of Brazilian cement industry

This paper demonstrates that when an industry faces potential entry and this threat of entry constrains pre-entry prices, cost and conduct are not identified from the comparative statics of equilibrium. In such a setting, the identifying assumption behind the well-established technique of relying on exogenous demand perturbations to empirically distinguish between alternative hypotheses of conduct is shown to fail. The Brazilian cement industry, where the threat of imports restrains market outcomes, provides an empirical illustration. In particular, pricecost margins estimated using this established technique are considerably biased downward, underestimating the degree of market power. A test of conduct is proposed, adapted to this constrained setting, which suggests that outcomes in the industry are collusive and characterised by market division.