Dynamic analysis on market structure of China's coal industry

According to industrial organization theory, market structure is a crucial factor to market performance. Based on the VAR model and the data from 1994 to 2014, we revealed the dynamic response route of the market structure to these factors and the change process of contribution rate of these factors to the market structure. It shows that market structure is inertial adjustment; technology advance and industry policy have continuous effects on improvement of market concentration ratio; market size and production scale have sustained negative effects on market concentration ratio; fixed capital has barrier effect, which is mainly the entry barrier effect at the beginning, and then the exit barrier effect continues to play a leading role. Therefore, the government has no need to introduce special policies to encourage merger or expansion on the capacity as enterprises would do it spontaneously; it is necessary to make market access system stricter, to improve exit compensation mechanism and to promote technological innovation; all these policies need dynamic adjustment based on the stages of economic cycle.