Time to revive antitrust?

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Competition is dying. That’s the latest complaint against American business. We have too many supersized firms, excessively large and unnaturally profitable. Dubious mergers, permitted by toothless antitrust laws, boost companies’ market power and squash rivals. The lifeblood of a dynamic economy is competition; its erosion — if true — would be a momentous event.

But is it true? Let’s see. - -

massive and have dominant market posi-

take one obvious example—has about 90 percent of the internet search market.

Mergers and acquisitions among large So, it seems, the economy is increasingly

Just what has caused this is an unsettled question, but some entrepreneurs may be deterred by the growing market power of established companies. Barriers to entry may have risen. “Antitrust policy and market power, why didn’t they raise

consumer price increases averaged only -

The economy may — or may not — have become less competitive in recent decades, but it’s clearly more competitive over a

During these years, the economy experienced three huge competitive jolts from: a) foreign competition; b) deregulation — air travel, oil and gas production, television (the rise of cable), telephone service; and c) personal computers and the internet.

Competition’s benefits were enor- number of annual domestic passengers

As for cyber companies, they merit special treatment. The major problems involve the effects of technology on society more than the industry’s competitive structure. Can we protect the country from disruptive cyberattacks? What privacy rules should we adopt? Can we monitor the Internet to prevent lies without crippling free speech? These are all very hard questions.

acquisitions. Many don’t make sense. Wasteful and inefficient, they reflect executive

(bigger companies usually mean bigger executive pay packages). But government is ill-equipped to make these judgments. In its clumsy way, the market is a better disciplinarian. If companies become too big or diversi-