IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedmsr/236.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Monopoly rights: a barrier to riches

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen L. Parente
  • Edward C. Prescott

Abstract

Our thesis is that poor countries are poor because they employee arrangements for which the equilibrium outcomes are characterized by inferior technologies being used, and being used inefficiently. In this paper, we analyze the consequences of one such arrangement. In each industry, the arrangement enables a coalition of factor suppliers to be the monopoly seller of its input services to all firms using a particular production process. We find that the inefficiencies associated with this monopoly arrangement can be large. Whereas other studies have found that inefficiencies induced by monopoly are at most a few percent of output, we find that eliminating this monopoly arrangement could well increase output by roughly a factor of 3 without any increase in inputs.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen L. Parente & Edward C. Prescott, . "Monopoly rights: a barrier to riches," Staff Report, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmsr:236
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://minneapolisfed.org/research/common/pub_detail.cfm?pb_autonum_id=653
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/sr236.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bhagwati, Jagdish N, 1982. "Directly Unproductive, Profit-seeking (DUP) Activities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(5), pages 988-1002, October.
    2. Aghion, Philippe & Howitt, Peter, 1992. "A Model of Growth through Creative Destruction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 323-351, March.
    3. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, . "The poverty of nations: a quantitative exploration," Staff Report, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    4. Clark, Gregory, 1987. "Why Isn't the Whole World Developed? Lessons from the Cotton Mills," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 141-173, March.
    5. Avinash Dixit, 1979. "A Model of Duopoly Suggesting a Theory of Entry Barriers," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 20-32, Spring.
    6. Bergson, Abram, 1973. "On Monopoly Welfare Losses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(5), pages 853-870, December.
    7. Cowling, Keith & Mueller, Dennis C, 1978. "The Social Costs of Monopoly Power," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 88(352), pages 727-748, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mr. Ashvin Ahuja, 2012. "De-Monopolization toward Long-Term Prosperity in China," IMF Working Papers 2012/075, International Monetary Fund.
    2. Paulo Barelli & Samuel de Abreu Pess, 2002. "A Model of Capital Accumulation and Rent-Seeking," Penn CARESS Working Papers 4392bb4732a00ee414b60ef8a, Penn Economics Department.
    3. Gary D. Hansen & Edward C. Prescott, 2002. "Malthus to Solow," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1205-1217, September.
    4. Stephen L. Parente & Edward C. Prescott, . "A unified theory of the evolution of international income levels," Staff Report, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    5. Tse, Chung Yi, 2000. "Monopoly, human capital accumulation and development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 137-174, February.
    6. Ngai, L. Rachel, 2004. "Barriers and the transition to modern growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(7), pages 1353-1383, October.
    7. Gary D. Hansen & Edward C. Prescott, 1999. "Malthus to Solow," Staff Report, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    8. Gervan Fearon, 1998. "Monitoring Competitive Bidding in the Public Sector," University of Western Ontario, Departmental Research Report Series 9810, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics.
    9. James A. Robinson & Daron Acemoglu, 2000. "Political Losers as a Barrier to Economic Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 126-130, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Edward C. Prescott & Stephen L. Parente, 1999. "Monopoly Rights: A Barrier to Riches," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1216-1233, December.
    2. Samuel de Abreu Pessôa, 2001. "Um Modelo de Acumulação de Capital Físico e Humano: Um Diálogo Com a Economia do Trabalho," Anais do XXIX Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 29th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 035, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    3. Berthold Herrendorf & Arilton Teixeira, 2005. "How Barriers to International Trade Affect TFP," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(4), pages 866-876, October.
    4. Manfred Neumann, 1999. "Monopoly Welfare Losses in the Long Run," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 26(1), pages 1-9, March.
    5. Jakob Madsen & James Ang & Rajabrata Banerjee, 2010. "Four centuries of British economic growth: the roles of technology and population," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 263-290, December.
    6. Gumus, Erdal, 2006. "The Social Costs of Monopoly: A Survey And An Evaluation," MPRA Paper 42107, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Timothy J. Kehoe, 1992. "Modeling the dynamic impact of North American free trade," Working Papers 491, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    8. Young, David P. T., 1997. "Dominant firms, price leadership and the measurement of monopoly welfare losses," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 533-533, August.
    9. Christian Bjørnskov & Nicolai Foss, 2010. "Economic Freedom and Entrepreneurial Activity: Some Cross-Country Evidence," Springer Books, in: Andreas Freytag & Roy Thurik (ed.), Entrepreneurship and Culture, chapter 0, pages 201-225, Springer.
    10. Shuntian Yao & Lydia L. Gan, 2006. "The Welfare Effects of Monopoly Innovation," Economic Growth Centre Working Paper Series 0609, Nanyang Technological University, School of Social Sciences, Economic Growth Centre.
    11. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Jan Svejnar & Katherine Terrell, 2010. "Globalization and Innovation in Emerging Markets," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 194-226, April.
    12. Ghosh, Arghya & Kato, Takao & Morita, Hodaka, 2017. "Incremental innovation and competitive pressure in the presence of discrete innovation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 1-14.
    13. Corchón, Luis C. & Zudenkova, Galina, 2009. "Computing welfare losses from data under imperfect competition with heterogeneous goods," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 646-654, November.
    14. Hunt, Shelby D. & Duhan, Dale F., 2002. "Competition in the third millennium: efficiency or effectiveness?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 97-102, February.
    15. Davide Fantino, 2008. "R&D and market structure in a horizontal differentiation framework," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 658, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    16. Leopoldo Yanes, "undated". "Endogenous Technological Capability,Trade Policy and Coordination Failure: A Reconsideration of Economic Take-Off(s)," MRG Discussion Paper Series 1306, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    17. Chiara Criscuolo & Guy Lalanne, 2024. "A New Approach for Better Industrial Strategies," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 1-26, December.
    18. Comin, Diego & Mestieri, Martí, 2014. "Technology Diffusion: Measurement, Causes, and Consequences," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 2, pages 565-622, Elsevier.
    19. Yao, Shuntian & Gan, Lydia, 2010. "Monopoly innovation and welfare effects," Economics Discussion Papers 2010-10, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    20. Berthold Herrendorf & Arilton Teixeira, 2011. "Barriers To Entry And Development," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 52(2), pages 573-602, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Wealth;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedmsr:236. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kate Hansel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfrbmus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.