"A book on why most things are more expensive or lower quality, and why we're all still working long hours for the same or lower wages. Does it ever seem like most things you buy are more expensive or not as good as they once were, or both? Does it ever seem odd that, despite having access to...

We document the evolution of markups based on firm-level data for the US economy since 1950. Initially, markups are stable, even slightly decreasing. In 1980, average markups start to rise from 18% above marginal cost to 67% now. There is no strong pattern across industries, though markups tend...

To date, little is known about the evolution of market power for the economies around the world. We extract data from the financial statements of over 70,000 firms in 134 countries, and we analyze and document the evolution of markups over the last four decades. We show that the average global...