Antitrust and Inequality

• Author: Shi-Ling Hsu
• DOI: 10.1177/0003603X18756145
• Published date: 01 March 2018
• Date: 01 March 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Antitrust and Inequality: The

Problem of Super-Firms

Shi-Ling Hsu*

Abstract

Increasingconcern about economic inequality has coincidedwith an unsettling ascendancyof some large,

technologically integrated “super-firms,” which have grabbed large market shares in multiple markets,

and cast doubtupon the future viabilityof a wide range of businesses, manyof which have been important

local and regional employers. It is thus unsurprising that these two trends have knocked together in

public discourse, and that antitrust law been proposed as one way of helping to remedy economic

inequality. Thisessay notes that antitrust law is generallya poor fit for reducing economic inequality,but

one aspect is worthyof note: an apparent increase in the capital-labor ratio in manyindustries, especially

in technological industries, where super-firms are predominant. An increase in the capital-labor ratio,

which is putatively efficient but which may have the effect of suppressing wages, coincides with an

increase in industrial concentration, suggesting that the overlap between antitrust law and economic

inequality is not the null set. This essay builds on the work of many antitrust scholars in calling for a

broader rangeof considerations in adjudicatingantitrust cases. The possibilitythat antitrust law is playing

a role in increasing the capital-labor ratio andchanging the structure of economies is dangerous enough

that some change in antitrust law is warranted to address foreseeable effects.

Keywords

antitrust, inequality, capital-labor, ratio

I. Introduction

As this sym posium issue recognizes, the areas of anti trust law and inequali ty have sometimes

knocked together in recent policy debates. From Thomas Piketty’s data -driven Capital in the

Twenty-First Century,

1

to J.D. Vance’s emotional Hillbilly Elegy,

2

to the 2016 presidential

*Florida State University College of Law, Tallahassee, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Shi-Ling Hsu, Florida State Universit y College of Law, Advocacy Center, Room A227C, 425 W Jeffe rson St, Tallahassee,

Tallahassee, FL 32301, USA.

Email: shsu@law.fsu.edu

1. THOMAS PIKETTY,CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (A. Goldhammer trans., 2014; originally published as LE CAPITAL AU

XXI SIE

`CLE [2013]).

2. J.D. VANCE,HILLBILLY ELEGY:AMEMOIR OF A FAMILY AND CULTURE IN CRISIS (2016).

The Antitrust Bulletin

2018, Vol. 63(1) 104-112

ªThe Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0003603X18756145

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