A Theory of Falling Growth and Rising Rents

Article dans une revue: Growth has fallen in the U.S. amid a rise in firm concentration. Market share has shifted to low labour share firms, while within-firm labour shares have actually risen. We propose a theory linking these trends in which the driving force is falling overhead costs of spanning multiple products or a rising efficiency advantage of large firms. In response, the most efficient firms (with higher markups) spread into new product lines, thereby increasing concentration and generating a temporary burst of growth. Eventually, due to greater competition from efficient firms, within-firm markups and incentives to innovate fall. Thus our simple model can generate qualitative patterns in line with the observed trends.

Auteur(s)

Philippe Aghion, Antonin Bergeaud, Timo Boppart, Peter Klenow, Huiyu Li

Revue
  • Review of Economic Studies
Date de publication
  • 2023
Mots-clés JEL
O31 O47 O51
Mots-clés
  • Productivity growth slowdown
  • Concentration
  • Markups
  • IT revolution
  • Overhead costs
Pages
  • 2675-2702
Version
  • 1
Volume
  • 90