Intangibles and industry concentration: a cross-country analysis

Matěj Bajgar, Chiara Criscuolo and Jonathan Timmis

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This paper presents new evidence on the growing scale of large businesses in the United States, Japan and 11 European countries. It documents a broad increase in industry concentration across the majority of countries and sectors over the period 2002–2017. The rising concentration is strongly linked to investment in intangibles—particularly innovative assets; and software and data—and this relationship is magnified in more globalised industries. The results are consistent with intangibles disproportionately benefiting large firms, enabling them to scale up and increase their market shares by leveraging intangibles across multiple markets.

Keywords: intangible investment; business groups; concentration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E22 L10 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2025-01-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-eec and nep-tid
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Published in Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 27, January, 2025. ISSN: 0305-9049

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:126673

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