Economics, General Economics, General Economics (econ.GN)
journal:
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date:
2023-09-21 16:00:00
Abstract
How much has market power increased in the United States in the last fifty years? And how did the rise in market power affect aggregate profits? Using micro-level data from U.S. Compustat, we find that several indicators of market power have steadily increased since 1970. In particular, the aggregate markup has gone up from 10% of price over marginal cost in 1970 to 23% in 2020, and aggregate returns to scale have risen from 1.00 to 1.13. We connect these market-power indicators to profitability by showing that the aggregate profit share can be expressed in terms of the aggregate markup, aggregate returns to scale, and a sufficient statistic for production networks that captures double marginalization in the economy. We find that despite the rise in market power, the profit share has been constant at 18% of GDP because the increase in monopoly rents has been completely offset by rising fixed costs and changes in technology. Our empirical results have subtle implications for policymakers: overly aggressive enforcement of antitrust law could decrease firm dynamism and paradoxically lead to lower competition and higher market power.PDF: The Micro-Aggregated Profit Share.pdf
