Friday, March 22, 2019

Market Concentration

John Cochrane discusses an interesting paper that claims that, while national concentration has increased, local concentration has decreased.  In other words, each location has more competition within various industries, but the competition is more among national chains than among local firms.  So, there top firms claim a larger portion of the national market, but at the local level, consumers have more choices.
What's going on? The natural implication is that the town once had 3 local restaurants, two local banks, and 3 stores. Now it has a McDonalds, a Burger King, a Denny's and an Applebees; a branch of Chase, B of A, and Wells Fargo, and a Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Costco. National brands replace local stores, increasing the number of local stores.

3 comments:

  1. And zero pushcart, motorcycle-sidecar or truck vendors, but maybe a few food food trucks.

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  2. Big swoon today in Asian stock markets on inverted yield curve. Can the Fed reverse course?

    Scott Sumner says cutting rates is not reversing course, just steering. Explain that to the Fed.

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