Super-Star Firms, Monopolies, and Productivity: Are We in a New Gilded Age or a New Rust Age?

There is renewed focus by economists and policymakers in the US about the slowdown in productivity growth and innovation, especially since the beginning of the 21st century. Why has labor’s share in national income declined steadily since the early 1980s? Should we be concerned with the rise of monopoly capital in the form of “super-star” companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google, that now dominate sales, profits and production, and where the utilization of labor is low compared to other companies and industries? What do these trends mean for productivity growth? Experts from academia and the private sector joined BFI for a conversation on the growth of market power and implications for US innovation, productivity, and more.