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NotSanguine writes:

On 4 November 2019, Techcrunch published an interview with Thomas Philippon, author of the book The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets, where he discusses the diminution of competition in many US market sectors.

From the Techcrunch article:

Economist Thomas Philippon's new book, "The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets," went on sale this past week, highlighting the United States' failure to block the country's largest companies from inhibiting fair competition.

"The broad picture is that competition is good, but surprisingly fragile," he said. "In today's environment, the U.S. is moving from a place where it was at the forefront of having free markets that worked pretty well for most people to being a laggard in many industries."

Philippon's premise isn't exactly breaking news, but the interview and his book give some good background as to how we got where we are, and how other nations are addressing these issues more (in some cases, much more) effectively.

The deregulation of major U.S. industries like telecom and energy in the 1970s and 80s sparked competition that lowered consumer prices and drove product innovation between competitors. Europe, on the other hand, lagged behind with more expensive internet, phone plans, airline tickets, and more until around 2000 when a major reversal of this trend began. Strikingly, when the EU strengthened deregulation and antitrust efforts to open its markets to more competition, it was the U.S. that reversed course.

[...] Based on Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data, the U.S. now has more regulations for opening a new business than every EU country except Greece and Poland — a complete reversal since 1998, when only the UK had fewer rules than the U.S. Per capita GDP growth in the EU outpaced that of the U.S. over 1999-2017. On a purchasing power parity basis, Americans have experienced a 7% increase in prices (relative to EU residents) for the same goods, due specifically to increased profit margins of companies with reduced competition.

The reason for this divergence? According to Philippon, corporate incumbents in the U.S. gained outsized political influence and have used it to a) smother potential antitrust reviews and b) implement regulations that inhibit startups from competing against them. As a result, the U.S. regulatory system prioritizes the interests of incumbents at the expense of free market competition, he says.

What say you, Soylentils? Is competition truly dead in many sectors of the economy, or are there ways to bring it back and keep it?

Original Submission