Oligopoly, Macroeconomic Performance, and Competition Policy

64 Pages Posted: 6 Nov 2018

See all articles by José Azar

José Azar

University of Navarra, IESE Business School; CEPR; ECGI

Xavier Vives

University of Navarra - IESE Business School; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research)

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Date Written: August 23, 2018

Abstract

We develop a macroeconomic framework in which firms are large and have market power with respect to both products and labor. Each firm maximizes a share-weighted average of shareholder utilities, which makes the equilibrium independent of price normalization. In a one-sector economy, if returns to scale are non-increasing, then an increase in “effective” market concentration (which accounts for overlapping ownership) leads to declines in employment, real wages, and the labor share. Moreover, if the goal is to foster employment then (i) controlling common ownership and reducing concentration are complements and (ii) government jobs are a substitute for either policy. Yet when there are multiple sectors, due to an intersectoral pecuniary externality, an increase in common ownership can stimulate the economy when the elasticity of labor supply is high relative to the elasticity of substitution in product markets. We find that neither the monopolistically competitive limit of Dixit and Stiglitz nor the oligopolistic one of Neary (when firms become small relative to the economy) are attained unless there is incomplete portfolio diversification with no intra-industry common ownership.

Keywords: ownership, portfolio diversification, labor share, market power, oligopsony, antitrust policy

JEL Classification: L130, L210, L410, G110, E600, D630

Suggested Citation

Azar, José and Vives, Xavier, Oligopoly, Macroeconomic Performance, and Competition Policy (August 23, 2018). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 7189, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3274558 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3274558

José Azar

University of Navarra, IESE Business School ( email )

Avenida Pearson 21
Barcelona, 08034
Spain

CEPR ( email )

London
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/site/joseazar/

ECGI ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Xavier Vives (Contact Author)

University of Navarra - IESE Business School ( email )

Avenida Pearson 21
Barcelona, 08034
Spain

HOME PAGE: http://wwwapp.iese.edu/faculty/facultyDetail.asp?lang=en&prof=xv

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research) ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

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