Source: Too Many Companies Drain Value From the Economy | Bloomberg Opinion, by Noah Smith
How much of this increase in market value was due to rent extraction, or to the expectation of future rent extraction?
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it’s possible that big companies are increasing their market power by using lobbying to capture politicians and regulators. If this is true, it’s very bad news for free markets and capitalism. … Why exactly big companies and their lobbyists might have become more successful in bending regulation to their will since 2000 is still a mystery, but it’s a phenomenon that deserves more attention and investigation.