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 arewarranted. But the latest Census Bureau data once again puts the lie to that argument. KEY TAKEAWAYS In recent years, populist reformers pressing the case for overhauling antitrustenforcement have relied on the claim that industrial concentration has been increasing. 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 thatbenign trend has continued through at least 2022. 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 isincorporated into the analysis. Aggregate concentration therefore is not a valid rationale for antitrust changes. Regulatorsshould instead conduct case-by-case analyses to determine whether concentration inparticular industries is problematic. 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 ....................................................................................... 11Incorporating Trade Data Into the Analysis......................................................................... 12Concentration in 2022 Was Lower When Imports and Exports Are Incorporated .................. 13Concentration Decreases Over Time When Imports and Exports Are Incorporated ................ 14The Negative Correlation Between C4 Concentration Ratio and Changes in PercentagePoint Is More Pronounced When Including Net Imports.................................................... 15Highly Concentrated Industries When Net Imports Are Considered..................................... 15How Should Antitrust Move Forward? ................................................................................ 16Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 17Endnotes ....................................................................................................................... 18 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 risingmarket 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 thedemocratic process. 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 recentrelease 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,increases in concentration have been negligent and in many relevant aspects has gone down: ▪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 at42 out of 889 firms, or about 4.7 percent.4 ▪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 thetotal) or decreased moderately (41 percent of the total).▪The relationship between concentration in 2017 and percentage point increase betweenthen and 2022 was slightly negative. The relationship indicates that a higherconcentration in 2017 is associated with a decrease in concentration between 2017 and2022.▪Of industries with a C4 ratio of 60 percent or higher in 2017, only eight of themincreased in