Big Isn’t Necessarily Bad
A recurring claim among a certain breed of would-be antitrust reformers—most recently given voice by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) during a June hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee—is that “big is bad.”
The claim suffers first and foremost from conceptual ambiguity. Big in what sense? Market share? Revenue? Headcount? Asset size? Geographic scope? Each of these measures captures something different about a firm.
A company might employ thousands but hold only a modest market share, or it might have huge revenues while operating in a highly fragmented sector. Proponents of the “big is bad” sentiment tend to lump each of these together, as if they had the same causes and consequences for the economy, when in reality they point to different competitive dynamics and policy implications.