Steindl's Contribution to the Theory of Industry Concentration.

Over a period of some fifty years from the early 1940s until his death in 1993, Josef Steindl developed and expounded a theory of industry concentration. His analysis deals explicitly with differences in costs and demand among firms producing similar products. These differences lead to differences in firm growth, so that his analysis is dynamic. Thus, it provides a constructive alternative to the emphasis in the neoclassical mainstream on static equilibrium with identical firms. In the present paper, Steindl's analysis is subjected to a critical appraisal. Shortcomings of the analysis are noted, its links with other approaches to the theory of industry concentration are identified and directions for further development are indicated. Copyright 2000 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd/University of Adelaide and Flinders University of South Australia