The Profit Paradox: How Thriving Firms Threaten the Future of Work

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A pioneering account of the surging global tide of market powerand how it stifles workers around the world

In an era of technological progress and easy communication, it might seem reasonable to assume that the worlds working people have never had it so good. But wages are stagnant and prices are rising, so that everything from a bottle of beer to a prosthetic hip costs more. Economist Jan Eeckhout shows how this is due to a small number of companies exploiting an unbridled rise in market powerthe ability to set prices higher than they could in a properly functioning competitive marketplace. Drawing on his own groundbreaking research and telling the stories of common workers throughout, he demonstrates how market power has suffocated the world of work, and how, without better mechanisms to ensure competition, it could lead to disastrous market corrections and political turmoil.

The Profit Paradoxdescribes how, over the past forty years, a handful of companies have reaped most of the rewards of technological advancementsacquiring rivals, securing huge profits, and creating brutally unequal outcomes for workers. Instead of passing on the benefits of better technologies to consumers through lower prices, these superstar companies leverage new technologies to charge even higher prices. The consequences are already immense, from unnecessarily high prices for virtually everything, to fewer startups that can compete, to rising inequality and stagnating wages for most workers, to severely limited social mobility.

A provocative investigation into how market power hurts average working people,The Profit Paradoxalso offers concrete solutions for fixing the problem and restoring a healthy economy.

Provocative, ambitious, and pitch-perfect for this moment. Eeckhout shows how the rise of mega-profitable superstar corporations makes us all poorer. David Autor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Author Bio

Jan Eeckhout is the ICREA Research Professor at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and professor of economics at University College London. His work has been featured in the Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Twitter @jan_eeckhout