Jesse G Kreier

This book provides the basis for a more informed public policy discussion of the future of the U. S. steel industry. It shows how the increasingly important role played by public authorities in steel served to precipitate and prolong the structural crisis, and to exacerbate its harmful effects.

The problems of the U. S. steel industry have been a source of public controversy for over twenty years. The industry has grown substantially smaller since the 1960s and hundreds of thousands of steelworkers have lost their jobs. Some steel firms and many steel mills have shut down entirely,profoundly affecting regional economies based on steel and its related industries. An industrial transformation of this magnitude has inevitably given rise to efforts to identify its underlying causes. This book is a contribution to that effort.