Market Domination!: The Impact of Industry Consolidation on Competition, Innovation, and Consumer Choice

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An oligopoly (from the Greek, few sellers) is a market that is dominated by a few large and powerful players. As Steve Hannaford documents with numerous examples, virtually every industry today �from medical equipment to airlines, toy retailing to oil� is trending in this direction, in the greatest movement toward industry consolidation since the turn of the 20th century. Charting the course of this trend around the world, Hannaford examines the motivations behind consolidation resulting from mergers, acquisitions, buyouts, and alliances; how companies exert political pressure to their advantage; and how the actions of the most dominant players � such as Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, Viacom, Dell, ExxonMobil, Citigroup, and others—affect the choices we make at the supermarket, the drugs we are prescribed, and the movies we watch.

Everyone who reads the newspapers is aware of the dizzying pace of mergers, acquisitions, buyouts, and alliances, between big companies and small companies in every industry. Such deals, along with the growing social and political clout of the biggest companies, are critical issues for the economy and for our future as consumers.

Charting the course of this trend around the world, Hannaford examines the motivations behind consolidation into corporate empires, how companies exert political pressure to their advantage, and how the actions of the most dominant players, such as Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, Viacom, Dell, ExxonMobil, Citigroup, and others, affect the choices we have at the supermarket, the drugs we are prescribed, and the movies we watch. Considering the implications of industry concentration on competition, technological innovation, business management, strategy, consumer behavior, and politics, Hannaford paints a provocative, but ultimately balanced, picture of big business and its impact on society.

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Market Domination!: The Impact of Industry Consolidation on Competition, Innovation, and Consumer Choice Review

Most business sectors in the modern economy have a few suppliers: neither the pure competition of economics textbooks, nor monopolies. Most aware grownups may know that the corporate world is dominated by oligopolies, but what about the effects of these organizations? And what about the effects of firms like Wal*Mart, which are retailing oligopolies, but oligopsonies to a growing number of suppliers? Or the film industry, with a vertical stack of concentrated producers, distributors, and theater chains/video rental chains?

Strangely, there's very little literature on the modern phenomenon of the "oligonomy," or markets dominated by a small number of sellers and buyers. There are plenty of books on different aspects of this (e.g., Stacy Mitchell's Big-Box Swindle), and even a few breathless exposes. However, it's very difficult to find books addressing the economics and management of market dominance.

Hannaford outlines the basic characteristics and mechanics of oligonomy: firms increasingly find they must win 1st or 2nd place in order to survive; mega-retailers that push small suppliers to the wall; external economies of scale; and legal clout. Firms capable of dominating supplies and consumer markets are in an enviable position and may escape the invisible hand for an extremely long time.

He also does an admirable job describing the impact of oligonomies on our society: pressure on organized labor; pressure on regulators to weaken environmental, health, and safety regulations; limitations of product variety' pseudo-variety; homogenization of consumer markets; transformation of business models for most retailing.

The book is very short, yet ambitious; readers are likely to regret that there isn't more detail. The sheer scope of the subject is actually amazing, and could easily fill a book six times as long; and of course, it's difficult for anyone to make treatment of the subject have a long shelf life: in the months after it was written, the financial market was completely thrown into turmoil.

Hannaford's treatment is not breathless; it's a very good balance of professionalism and accessibility. He doesn't editorialize much, and he explains why things happen in a way that compels readers to set aside simple resentment of mega-corporations, even as he explains the severe consequences of the modern constricted market. Finally, researchers will need to read this book anyway if they're interested in getting started in any examination of the economic consequences of business concentration.

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