Coal market transactions are interesting to
focus on because there is considerable variation
in the duration and structure of vertical
relationships between buyers and sellers. I
observe spot market transactions,vertical
integration, and a wide variety of longer term
contractual relationships with durations
ranging from one year to fifty years.
My related work (1985) suggests that asset specificity
considerations may be an important
factor affecting the structure of
vertical relationships in coal markets.The
empirical results reported below provide
strong support for the hypothesis that buyers
and sellers make longer ex ante commitments
to the terms of future trade, and rely
less on repeated negotiations over time,when
relationship-specific investments are more
important