Determinants of mine closures in a declining industry: The example of West German hard-coal mining after World War Two

Zusammenfassung

We apply competing-risks-regression to explain mine closures in German hard coal mining over 1948- 1978, the phase of most intense closure activity. The single-most important determinant was mine size, serving as proxy for fixed costs; being a large mine lengthened survival time. Labor productivity, in turn, did not inform closure decisions.(c) 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.