Pharmaceutical companies have been merging at a record pace in recent years, and drug makers often use their concentrated market power to raise the prices of generic drugs, such as Digoxin, Daraprim, Naloxone, and standard vaccines. Go to Open Markets’ Food & Power website for figures and analysis regarding concentrated power in the food system, where we have in-depth data on livestock farming, produce farming, processed foods, grain farming, beer, and many more markets. In the automobile industry, where manufacturers compete aggressively for customers, a handful of monopolists wield dominant power in the world of auto parts, so that giant firms control the production of things like car seats and dashboards.īelow, we’ve compiled some examples of this concentration as found in different sectors. Rexam, a British company, holds a dominant position over the international supply of bottle caps and pharmaceutical bottles.Īnd, even in industries where many firms compete to sell to end users, monopolists will roll up control of the supply base. Corning, an American glass manufacturer, sells 60 percent of all the glass used in LCD screens, and Owens Illinois holds a near monopoly over market for glass bottles in the US. Monopolists have captured control over many lines of manufacturing as well. In drug stores, meanwhile, the pending takeover of Rite Aid by Walgreen’s would reduce the market to two giants, along with CVS. Hospital ownership of physician practices more than doubled between 20, from 24 to 49 percent. Hospital corporations across America have also been buying up physician practices in recent years. and the whole western portion of the state are served by just one hospital corporation. Many communities face even more monopolistic markets – Grand Junction, Colo. In the average hospital market, the top three hospitals and systems account for 77 percent of all hospital admissions. We see some of the most extreme consolidation in hospitals, health insurers, pharmaceutical corporations, and medical device industries. As our Food & Power website details, the story is much the same in food-processing, egg production, grain production, and produce farming. Two firms, Dean Foods and the Dairy Farmers of America control as much as 80-90 percent of the milk supply chain in some states and wield substantial influence across the entire industry. But that greatly understates the problem, as in many regions, a single corporation holds a complete monopoly. Today, the businesses of beef, pork, and poultry slaughter are all dominated by four giants at the national level. A generation ago, small, independent operations defined the entire industry. Much the same is true in food and farming. In mattresses, two companies control 60 percent of the entire U.S. In eyeglasses, one company, Luxxotica, dominates the manufacture and retail of glasses. The story’s often the same for more specialized retail. The corporation, for instance, sells 74 percent of all e-books and 64 percent of all print books sold online. Amazon, meanwhile, dominates e-commerce in general, and many specific lines of business. In close to 40 metropolitan areas across America, Walmart sells more than half of all groceries. Nearly every marketplace in America is vastly more consolidated than a generation ago.Ĭonsider retail today, a single corporation, Walmart, controls 72 percent of warehouse clubs and super centers in the entire United States. We see some of the most dramatic evidence of concentration at the level of individual economic sectors. Louis and Memphis increasingly find themselves cut off and hollowed out. As research and writing by Open Markets has detailed, wealth and power is increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer cities, meaning that as San Francisco, New York City, and Washington thrive, a growing large number of large heartland communities like St. Similarly, we can see how wealth is increasingly concentrated geographically. Thanks to research led by the Open Markets Team, we see how economic concentration increasingly blocks entrepreneurs from starting and growing their own businesses. We see when we compare the salary of a CEO today to that of a CEO in the 1970s. There are many indicators that economic concentration is increasing. The economists Paul Krugman and Larry Summers have linked growing monopoly power to weak growth, and in a recent White House report, Jason Furman and Peter Orszag argued that monopoly has contributed to inequality in wages. The Economist exemplified this with a pair of articles in 2016, in which they wrote that “the fruits of economic growth are being hoarded” by America’s profitable corporate giants, who face negligible competition. Thus far, most of the coverage of America’s monopoly problem has come from the 10,000-foot level.
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