How to Spot a Monopoly
Competition between companies is seen by most economists as the engine of innovation, economic growth, and prosperity in modern market economies. Competition is one of the only economic forces to have laws and dedicated regulators set up to promote it, and nearly everyone agrees that some interventions to promote it are worthwhile. But while virtually everyone agrees that competition is a very good thing, it is much harder to agree on what competition actually looks like.
Instead, economists, courts, and regulators rely on imperfect proxies for competition. But these are often contradictory. They can even lead to perverse outcomes that few people think desirable: legal challenges, prohibitions on business practices that would actually increase innovation or growth, and bans on mergers that, paradoxically, can leave markets less competitive.