{"id":722,"date":"2017-12-01T09:23:54","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T13:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/?p=722"},"modified":"2018-10-03T14:10:46","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T18:10:46","slug":"information-technology-industry-concentration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/2017\/12\/01\/information-technology-industry-concentration\/","title":{"rendered":"Information Technology &#038; Industry Concentration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>James Bessen<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Industry concentration has been rising in the US since 1980. Why? This paper\u00a0explores the role of proprietary information technology systems (IT), which could increase\u00a0industry concentration by raising the productivity of top firms relative to others. Using\u00a0instrumental variable estimates, this paper finds that industry IT system use is strongly\u00a0associated with the level and growth of industry concentration. The paper also finds that IT\u00a0system use is associated with greater plant size, greater labor productivity, and greater\u00a0 margins for the top four firms in each industry compared to the rest. Successful IT\u00a0systems appear to play a major role in the recent increases in industry concentration and in\u00a0profit margins, moreso than a general decline in competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/2017\/10\/11\/why-large-firms-are-becoming-more-dominant\/\">Research Summary<\/a>: <strong>Why are large firms becoming more dominant?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ssrn.com\/abstract=3044730\">PDF<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Bessen<\/p>\n<p>Since the 1980s, US industries have become increasingly dominated by large firms across almost all sectors. Why? One possibility is that large firms have become dominant because antitrust authorities have allowed too many mergers and acquisitions. James Bessen explores another possibility: that leading firms have been better at harnessing information technology (IT) for competitive advantage, allowing them to grow faster.  <\/p>\n<p><b><a href=\"http:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/2017\/10\/11\/why-large-firms-are-becoming-more-dominant\/\">Research Summary<\/a>: Why are large firms becoming more dominant?  <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13606,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,20],"tags":[22],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13606"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":871,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions\/871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/tpri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}