Of firms and profits
Last week I spoke at the World Bank’s Productivity Bootcamp, organized by Ana Cusalito, Bill Maloney, and Jan De Loecker. A psychologist might say that the professor in me could not let go of teaching. But the Bootcamp was about more than “productivity.” It covered firm profitability, competition, and market power – topics that lie at the heart of the raging debate on market concentration and firm profits, the declining labor share in the U.S., and rising inequality.