Grazing along my bookshelf this morning, postponing getting to work, I found ‘Industrial Concentration‘ by M.A.Utton in the Penguin Modern Economics series – 1960s/70s paperbacks for the people providing overviews of different fields in the subject. This one was published in 1970 and it’s fascinating as a window on the historical evolution of competition policy.
One distinction it draws, certainly no longer valid, is between tough American anti-trust policy with a legacy dating back to the Sherman Act and relatively weak and new British competition policy based on 1948 legislation under the Monopolies Commission, which Utton describes as always willing to accept ‘public interest’ arguments for allowing mergers of big companies. American policy was far more willing to tackle the structure of an industry, he argues.
Hence UK business had become far more concentrated in the 1950s and 60s, although with effects mitigated by greater openness to foreign competition via trade than the relatively closed US economy. At the time of writing, the newish (1966) Industrial Reorganization Corporation (IRC) in the UK was busy promoting still more mega-mergers to create ‘national champions’, with the companies involved given a nod and a wink to say they would not be referred to the Monopolies Commission.
Interestingly, a recent Yale Law Journal article by Lina Khan argues for a return from the Chicago School emphasis on consumer welfare as measured by current prices to Sherman Act-inspired interventions in market structure, in the context of the digital giants. But it isn’t just the digital sector; there’s pretty convincing evidence of increasing concentration across the US economy, as The Economist recently summmarised.
The UK’s history of competition policy has been brighter recently thanks to the formation of the independent Competition Commission and now Competition and Markets Authority (with its excellent economists, including my son). There have been blips – notably the very bad decision during the financial crisis to make finance a sector exempt from the usual competition rules, in order to allow the Lloyds-HBoS merger. Still, the independence of the watchdog and the removal for the most part of vague ‘public interest’ considerations has been beneficial. However, vigilance is needed.
It isn’t only the challenge of ensuring the giant digital companies, with their giant network effects and economies of scale, continue to deliver for social rather than just private gain. The EU’s State Aid regime has been a massively important backdrop to domestic policy. If the Brexit train wreck continues, it will be essential to carry the regime over into domestic policy.
This is all the more important in the context of both the likely negative impact of Brexit on key sectors – there will be queues of badly affected businesses asking for special help or dispensations – and the aim of having a more strategic approach to economic policy, an industrial strategy. Nobody (in theory) wants a return to the ‘picking winners’ (ie losers) days of the IRC.
A really tough competition policy is the best way to avert this. It needs to include not just State Aid rules but also a rethink about the weak sector regulators in network sectors like water and telecoms. This is why we on the Industrial Strategy Commission have been putting so much emphasis on competition policy.[amazon_link asins=’0140801723′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’enlighteconom-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’edb16024-9ea0-11e7-b1d5-99a0f6c2bc29′](I note the Amazon price for this book is algorithmically weird – original cover price was 40p.)