Monopolies

Craft breweries buck the monopoly trend

Craft breweries buck the monopoly trend

Mounting evidence of widespread industry consolidation has many worried about the future health of the American economy. Excessive industry concentration can have negative effects on innovationjob creationwages, and productivity—hallmarks of competitive markets with many startup companies. But, there is at least one intriguing exception to this trend: microbreweries. I dug into Census Bureau data to find out the magnitude of this trend—looking at brewery industry business counts and employment by firm size.