1/Today's @bopinion post is about the increasing number of economists who are concerned about market concentration. https://t.co/YK7HY9LosD
— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) September 4, 2018
From https://one.oecd.org/document/DAF/COMP/WD(2018)69/en/pdf
2/Let me list some recent economics papers that have given cause for concern.
— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) September 4, 2018
We'll start with Gutierrez and Philippon (2016). https://t.co/VonoWecyfR
This paper asks why companies are investing less. The authors conclude that market concentration is a big factor. pic.twitter.com/Gaypiza2LE
3/Next, let's look at De Loecker and Eeckhout (2017).https://t.co/ub2QchGxhB …
— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) September 4, 2018
They document increasing price markups, and claim that this can explain a number of negative economic trends that have emerged in recent years. pic.twitter.com/C4b9P5nMdt
4/Next up: Autor, Dorn, Katz, Patterson, and Van Reenen (2017). https://t.co/fSAwXDLg5q
— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) September 4, 2018
These economists document rising industrial concentration, and link it to falling labor share within various industries. pic.twitter.com/fI1fR7EXPy
5/Next we have Barkai (2017), who claims that rising profits are not due to higher returns to capital ownership, but rather to rents being extracted from the economy. https://t.co/JcSIYewFWn
— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) September 4, 2018
He attributes this to decreased competition. pic.twitter.com/IIPv6ywpWH
9/Meanwhile, Blonigen and Pierce (2016) look at plant-level data in manufacturing, and find that mergers increase price markups, but not productivity. https://t.co/Qaes08Wzim pic.twitter.com/IzDmGScRAh
— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) September 4, 2018
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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