About a week ago I posted some numbers on the sales of the Fortune 500 as a percent of sales as evidence of increasing concentration. Several members of the list pointed to some potential problems with these numbers and seemed skeptical of any increasing concentration. Of course numbers on increasing concentration in the aggregate have no implications, in my opinion, for efficiency pricing decision etc. The main implications concern the political power of corporations. I tried finding data on aggregate concentration ratios for manufacturing but the numbers that exist are so old that they are worthless. Aggregate concentration ratios for manufacturing are available only up until 1992. The numbers from the 1997 Census of Manufactures will not be released until 2001. These numbers show no increase in concentration from the mid 1960's to the early 1990's. Scherer and Ross present in their IO text present evidence (up to 1982) in a text that came out in 1996 that there has been no increase in overall concentration. The skeptic that I am I went to the IRS data on corporations and drew Lorenz curves and calculated Gini Coefficients for the share of net income (profit) that goes to the largest corporations. Actually the concentration of profit is so high to begin with it is hard to believe that it could get higher. I can't post the Lorenz curves although I would be glad to mail the file to anyone who is interested. Here are the facts: In 1970 the largest 0.5% of corporations accounted for 73.6 percent of net income. In 1996 the largest 0.5% accounted for 86.5 percent of net income. The Gini coefficient if I have calculated it correctly ( and I haven't had time to double check my numbers) was .960 in 1970 and .971 in 1996. I made these calculations with IRS data which divides corporations into groups according to the size of their total assets. In 1970 there were 1,200 corporations with more than $250 million in assets out of a universe of 1.66 million corporations and they accounted for 57% of all net income. In 1996, as one might expect there were many more corporations with $250 million in assets (8,212 out of 4.6 million corporations). This 8,212 which represents about .2% of all corporations had 80% of the net income. I take all of this to mean that income and wealth is increasingly concentrated in the largest corporations in the U.S. and that they are increasingly able to wield this power in the political and economic arena through lobbying, campaign contributions and thwarting the efforts of workers to organize and win significant increases in wages and benefits. Rudy -- Rudy Fichtenbaum Professor of Economics & Chief Negotiator AAUP-WSU Department of Economics Wright State University Voice: 937-775-3085 3640 Colonel Glenn Hwy. FAX: 937-775-3545 Dayton, OH 45435-0001 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
