Market Power: The Inequality Connection

Market power is increasingly considered a potential source of inequality. Interestingly, during the same period in which mark-ups are likely to have risen substantially, and inequality to have increased, extreme poverty has fallen dramatically. These results suggest the ultimate mechanisms driving these changes may be complex. To the extent that market power is one of the origins of inequality, results of a long-run analysis based on a steady state model incorporating market power suggest that, out of 8 major OECD countries, Germany and the U.S. have the largest per capita wealth impact from reducing market power.