Market Power and Investment in Advanced Economies: Monopolistic and ‘Segmented’ Competition

• Agustin Pedrazzoli ^[1] ; Ignacio Álvarez ^[1] ; Santos M. Ruesga Benito ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

     Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

     Madrid, España

     
• Localización: Revista de economía mundial, ISSN 1576-0162, Nº 69, 2025, págs. 197-221
• Idioma: inglés
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Poder de mercado e inversión empresarial en economías avanzadas: competencia monopolística y competencia ‘segmentada’
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen
  • español

    Estudios recientes han relacionado el creciente poder de mercado en las economías avanzadas con el estancamiento de la inversión y el dinamismo.

    Este artículo analiza esta relación a nivel microeconométrico, empleando la cuota de mercado y el markup como medidas de poder de mercado a nivel empresa. Nuestros resultados muestran que las cuotas de mercado tienen un efecto negativo sobre la tasa de inversión, mientras que el efecto de los markups es ambiguo, siendo positivo inicialmente, y solo negativo para valores elevados del markup. Estos altos markups, sin embargo, se encuentran típicamente en empresas de menor tamaño. En consecuencia, el estado actual del poder de mercado en economías avanzadas se caracteriza por la presencia de empresas ‘nicho’ o competencia segmentada que, junto con la existencia de empresas pseudo-monopolistas, ejerce también una presión a la baja en la tasa de inversión

  • English

    Recent studies have related market power in advanced economies to stagnating business dynamism and investment. This article addresses this issue at the firm level, using both markups and market shares as measures of market power. While our results show that market shares have a negative effect on investment, markups generally have a positive effect, which only becomes negative for very high markups. The negative effect of high markups on investment should not, however, be attributed to market leaders, but to smaller, niche firms. Thus, the current state of market power in advanced economies is one where “superstar firms” and niche firms or “segmented competition” coexist, and together put downward pressure on investment rates.

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