Washington, D.C. (02/04/2022) – In a piece published in The Hill, Edward Longe – policy manager at the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit educational and research organization – explains how antitrust legislation will not fix inflation and may, in fact, make it worse.
Longe says “…economists are skeptical that antitrust enforcement would lower prices. In a survey of economists from America’s top universities, only 5 percent of respondents agreed that “antitrust interventions could successfully reduce U.S. inflation over the next 12 months.” Additionally, only 7 percent of economists surveyed said that “a significant factor behind today’s higher U.S. inflation is dominant corporations in uncompetitive markets taking advantage of their market power to raise prices.”
Antitrust will not fix inflation
The Hill
By Edward Longe
February 2, 2022
As U.S inflation hit a 40-year high of 7 percent in January, officials in the Biden administration sought to place the blame squarely upon monopolies manipulating prices. Raising the specter of monopolistic price manipulation, the White House has encouraged the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate the matter with the possibility of enhanced enforcement.
Not only is the allegation entirely without merit or evidence, but it also misses the underlying causes of inflation and represents nothing more than political scapegoating. The allegations also ignore the reality that cracking down on large companies might result in higher — not lower — consumer prices, which does not help inflation.
Rather than blaming large companies, the administration should pursue policies that could have a real impact, notably cutting government waste, easing tariffs, and incentivizing domestic production.
Read the full opinion piece here.
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