仍然微不足道：美国经济集中度的最新情况

GIORGIO CASTIGLIA, RODRIGO BALBONTIN, AND TRELYSA LONG|DECEMBER 2025 Despite evidence to the contrary, a persistent narrative during the past two administrations hasbeen that corporate power is getting increasingly concentrated, ergo antitrust breakups are KEY TAKEAWAYS In recent years, populist reformers pressing the case for overhauling antitrust As ITIF and others have reported, Economic Census data through 2017 showed thatconcentration in fact was not increasing. The most recently updated data now shows that Overall, less than 5 percent of U.S. industries are highly concentrated—and industriesthat were more concentrated in 2017 tended to become less concentrated by 2022. This trend is even more pronounced when trade data on imports and exports is Aggregate concentration therefore is not a valid rationale for antitrust changes. Regulatorsshould instead conduct case-by-case analyses to determine whether concentration in CONTENTS Key Takeaways ................................................................................................................. 1Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 3The Great Concentration Panic ........................................................................................... 3Census Bureau Concentration Data ..................................................................................... 4Concentration in 2022 ................................................................................................... 6Changes in Concentration ............................................................................................... 6Industries With High Increases in Concentration From 2017 to 2022 .................................. 9Advanced Technology Sectors ....................................................................................... 11 INTRODUCTION Populist antitrust reformers, in a push to overhaul decades of allegedly flagging antitrustenforcement in the United States, have staked much of their position on evidence of rising market concentration in the U.S. economy.1Concentration, in their view, is the most proximatecause of a host of economic ills, such as inflation and harm to consumers, workers, and even the This report leaves these specific issues to the side and inquires whether rising concentration canbe found in the data. It documents new evidence contained in the Census Bureau’s most recent release of U.S. industrial concentration data.2Overall, the evidence points to a continuing trendfound in studies conducted on the release of the 2017 Economic Census data.3That is, ▪The overall proportion of industries in the data that are highly concentrated—defined ashaving a four-firm concentration ratio (C4 ratio) of 80 percent or higher—remained low at ▪Of the 889 industries assessed, about 52 percent became more concentrated and 48percent became less concentrated between 2017 and 2022. ▪Out of the industries that became more concentrated, only 15 percent increased by 10 ormore percentage points. Most industries either increased moderately (44 percent of the ▪The relationship between concentration in 2017 and percentage point increase betweenthen and 2022 was slightly negative. The relationship indicates that a higher ▪Of industries with a C4 ratio of 60 percent or higher in 2017, only eight of themincreased in concentration by 10 percentage points or more between 2017 and 2022. ▪When incorporating trade data, which increases competition, the number of highly ormoderately concentrated industries fell, and the number of low concentration industries ▪Percentage point increases with trade declined as well, and the composition of the most In summary, if there is cause for concern about competition in the U.S. economy, it is not foundin aggregate concentration statistics. This result is even more pronounced when taking into THE GREAT CONCENTRATION PANIC In recent history, studies of industrial concentration have been used as a justification for stricterantitrust enforcement policies. The Biden administration attempted to overhaul competition policy, claiming that enforcement over the preceding four decades had been a “failedexperiment.”5Biden’s executive order on competition referred to “excessive concentration” and that concentration had increased in many industries, in turn causing harm to consumers, These views were magnified by studies claiming to show that concentration in the U.S. economyhad been increasing since the late 1990s.7Despite detailed warnings from experienced antitrusteconomists about reading too much into this evidence, this was taken by many to be a sign offlagging competition and growing monopoly power across sectors.8It further buoyed progressiveenforcers who attempted to institute an “anti-big tech” antitrust enforcement program.9These Supporters of this enforcement program have argued for policies that would