Biden’s Executive Order Based on False Premise; Monopoly in the United States Is NOT Increasing, Says ITIF
WASHINGTON—Following President Biden’s Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, released the following statement from Aurelien Portuese, ITIF’s director of antitrust and innovation policy:
President Biden’s Executive Order assumes that specific industries are getting more concentrated, but they are not. Competition in the United States is more robust than the order describes, and, as ITIF previously showed, monopoly has not grown. Only 4 percent of U.S. industries are highly concentrated, and the share of industries with low levels of concentration grew by around 25 percent from 2002 to 2017.
President Biden’s action is a clear sign that, in the aftermath of Tim Wu’s nomination as special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy, the White House is attempting to meddle into the work of federal antitrust agencies.
Instead of changing antitrust rules, the White House should ensure that agencies properly enforce existing antitrust laws. For everything else, the White House should defer to Congress.
- For more information, please see ITIF’s report No, Monopoly Has Not Grown and Monopoly Myths Series.
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The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute focusing on the intersection of technological innovation and public policy. Recognized by its peers in the think tank community as the global center of excellence for science and technology policy, ITIF’s mission is to formulate and promote policy solutions that accelerate innovation and boost productivity to spur growth, opportunity, and progress.
