Joint production and corporate pricing: An empirical analysis of joint products in the petroleum industry

This dissertation investigates the pricing mechanism of joint products in large multi-plant and multi-product corporations. The primary objective of this dissertation is to show the consistency of classical theories of production with corporate pricing of joint products.; This dissertation has two major parts. Part One provides a theoretical framework for joint production and corporate pricing. In this part, joint production is defined and its historical treatment by classical and contemporary economists is analyzed.; Part Two conducts an empirical analysis of joint products in the U.S. petroleum industry. Methods of cost allocation are used in the pricing of each individual petroleum product.; Three methods are employed to distribute joint production costs to individual petroleum products. These methods are, the sales value method, the barrel gravity method and the average unit cost method.; The empirical findings of dissertation provide useful guidelines for pricing policies of large multi-product corporations.