North American Industrial Classification System assignment

This is an assignment that focuses on the North American Industrial Classification System assignment. The paper also requires answering by following three steps.

North American Industrial Classification System assignment

Read the entry on ‘industrial concentration’ in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics at http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/IndustrialConcentration.html .  This will introduce concepts related to measuring the concentration of firms within an industry (as it relates to our discussions of market structure).

For this assignment,

Firstly, each person has a manufacturing industry. This is by a 5-digit North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code (See below for assignments.   I have included email addresses in the list to facilitate this. If you do work as a group, you can turn in a single assignment.)  More information about the NAICS code definitions can be found by looking up the code at http://www.naics.com/search/.  I would also suggest looking up the Industry Snapshot for your industry at https://www.census.gov/econ/snapshots/index.php.

Assignment:

(1)      You are to find at least one article from the business press about a company that produces in the assigned industry.  I would suggest using the Library’s Business Source Complete database.  You should try to find an article (or articles) that discusses aspects of the market or market conditions that the firm faces.  If possible, also find a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for your chosen firm.

(2)      Secondly, collect and present data on the 4-, 8-, 20- and 50-firm concentration ratios. Also, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index from the 2012, 2007, 2002 and 1997 Economic Census.  The 1997, 2002 and 2007 data can be found at https://www.census.gov/econ/concentration.html. (all of the assigned industries are ‘manufacturing’ (NAISC codes beginning with 31-33). So, follow the links in the 4th row of the table).  The 2012 data can be found at the Census Industry Statistics Portal https://www.census.gov/econ/isp/index.php [Note that for some industries’ data may be withheld for confidentiality reasons.  In that case a D will appear in the data table].  To make things easier, I have put direct links to the exact data tables you need in the Assignment 2 page on the class D2L shell.

(3)      Finally, given the evidence collected, decide whether the market is best describes as perfectly competitive, monopolistically competitive, an oligopoly, or a monopoly.  Provide details as to why you made the choice you made (using evidence from the articles and also as the concentration data) to support your decision.