markups

Jonathan B. Baker and Fiona Scott Morton challenge the interpretations of two new papers from Carl Shapiro & Ali Yurukoglu and Nathan Miller, which question economy-wide trends toward a rise in market power and, if any such trend has occurred, that it is due to lax antitrust enforcement.

Academics have argued that changes in product markup trends show that the European markets, abetted by the adoption of the Single Market and stronger antitrust enforcement, have become more competitive over the last half-century, whereas American markets have become more concentrated. In their research, Tommaso Crescioli and Angelo Martelli argue that a study of labor market power in Europe muddles this picture of higher competition in Europe.

An innovative new study finds substantial, increasing deadweight losses resulting from oligopolistic behavior and points to the important role that startup acquisitions—particularly by large...

Studies of the evolution of market power since 2000 have focused mostly on publicly traded US firms. This column introduces a new global study...

Two much-discussed new studies argue that market power is on the rise not only in the United States, but also around the world. Here,...

A new Stigler Center working paper shows that after decades of decline, profits started increasing in the early 1980s. Financial profit is ostensibly the...

If imputed payments to labor and capital don’t add up to GDP, what should be done with the residual? New research from Chicago Booth...