Democrats Are Wrong: America Does Not Have A Widespread "Monopoly Problem"

Ryan BourneSenator Elizabeth Warren vowed not to “let a handful of monopolists dominate our economy.” Senator Amy Klobuchar claimed we were living through “another gilded age.” “In sector after sector…” Bernie Sanders added, “we need a president who has the guts to appoint an attorney general who will take on these huge monopolies. ”Last week ’s Democratic debate showed a clear conventional wisdom in that party: America ’s economy is besieged by a monopoly problem.Markets are said to be dominated by ever smaller numbers of firms enjoying rising markups of price over cost. Consumers are supposedly suffering higher prices and less innovation while competitors  struggle to stay afloat because of behemoth anticompetitive behavior. The explanation? Supposedly a turn away from anti-monopoly policies over recent decades. Warren buys into the idea that antitrust laws have not been rigorously enforced. And she and others want the federal government to break up or more tightly regulate massive companies.Yet, increasingly, new academic evidence shows meaningful choice has not fallen in most sectors. In fact, the economic trends we do see appear to arise not because of weakly enforced antitrust laws, but because of an ongoing “industrial revolution in services” that is good for consumers.Back in 2016, President Obama ’sCouncil of Economic Advisors started the narrative about rising “concentration” of industries. Its work concluded that revenue shares of t...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs