Sustainable development vs Effective competition: Empirical analysis of industry-specific mechanical engineering markets

In the context of economic sanctions, there emerges an acute problem of finding optimal industry-specific policy mechanisms. Implementation of certain managerial decisions at the industry-specific level is largely dependent on the market development specificities. The study theoretically substantiates and empirically tests the hypothesis that sustainable development of industry-specific markets implies effective competition present in them. The theoretical framework includes the concepts of sustainable development and competition. The research methods are dynamic, statistical and industry analyses. We developed a set of methodological tools that provides for a dynamic complementary assessment of the industry-specific market parameters, namely the sustainabile development and the presence of effective competition. The first parameter was examined using the industry average annual growth rate, the second one – by analyzing the indicators of absolute leadership in costs, tur bulence in market shares, and the Bain index. The empirical data of the work was retrieved from 10 industry-specific mechanical engineering markets in the Russian Federation for 2000–2020. The findings indicate a significant differentiation in the field in question: the hypothesis of the study was confirmed only for three industries of mechanical engineering; the rest of the markets are characterized by both unstable growth dynamics and a low level of effective competition. The proposed methodological approach is universal and can be used to analyze other industrial markets.