Delineating Coal Market Regions
研究了1973年阿拉伯石油禁运以来美国煤炭市场区域的划分及其演变，通过聚类和回归分析，将煤炭分为低硫和高硫两类，并聚焦于电力行业的蒸汽煤运输。
This study addresses the delineation of US coal market regions and their evolution since the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Dichotomizing into compliance (low sulfur) and high sulfur coal deliveries, market regions are generated for 1973, 1977, and 1983. Focus is restricted to steam coal shipments to electric utilities, which currently account for over 80% of the total domestic market. A two-stage method is used. First, cluster analyses are performed on the origin-destination shipments data to generate baseline regions. This is followed by multiple regression analyses on CIF delivered price data for 1983. Sensitivity analysis on the configuration of the regions is also conducted, and some thoughts on the behavior of coal markets conclude the paper. 37 references, 6 figures, 2 tables.