antitrust law will probably never be the subject of breathless campaign coverage, at least not in this election year of a beauty queen and a leaked tax return . but it is one of the more powerful ways a president can shape the playing field of the united states economy. that<u+2019>s what makes hillary clinton<u+2019>s new comments about corporate power and antitrust law important. her campaign has embraced an emerging line of thought in left-of-center economic circles: that a big part of what ails the united states economy are policies that have allowed the biggest companies to become too big and too powerful, resulting in less competition, less opportunity for entrepreneurship, and lower levels of investment and compensation for workers. notably, this is an area of economic policy in which the president has great leeway to act. if you want huge spending on public infrastructure or subsidies for college, congress needs to agree; if you want more aggressive antitrust enforcement, you need only appoint the right people to key jobs at the justice department and the federal trade commission. in a speech in toledo, ohio, on monday, mrs. clinton assailed recent bad behavior by major companies. (she mentioned wells fargo <u+2014> which opened millions of bank accounts without customers<u+2019> permission <u+2014> five times.) an accompanying fact sheet posted to her website outlined her priorities for antitrust law. the campaign frames her efforts as being all about giving smaller companies a better shot against the big guys <u+2014> <u+201c>rewarding innovation and entrepreneurship in the private sector,<u+201d> as the fact sheet puts it. besides aggressively questioning proposed mergers, mrs. clinton intends to appoint antitrust officials who will retrospectively analyze past deals and potential <u+201c>exploitation of excessive market power where it already exists.<u+201d> in other words, she wants even companies that have already attained enormous market share to know that the government will be watching how they use that power. with the proposal, mrs. clinton taps into a stream of research from left-leaning economists and lawyers over the last few years, including the obama white house, that frames excessive market power for large companies as a key culprit of many of the united states<u+2019> economic problems. for example, the white house council of economic advisers found in a report published this spring that in most industries, the share of revenue brought in by the 50 largest companies rose from 1997 to 2012. also, the top 10 percent of publicly traded companies became sharply more profitable since the 1990s, while profitability of the bottom 90 percent of companies rose much less. and for all the buzz about the entrepreneurial culture of silicon valley and other tech hubs, new business formation has been declining for decades. in 2015, jason furman, the chief white house economist, and peter orszag, a citigroup executive and former obama administration official, published research arguing that higher income inequality can be attributed in part to outsize profits from certain companies, with most others left in the dust. the theory is that <u+201c>economic rents<u+201d> enable companies to enjoy excess profits by using legal or other regulatory tools to keep competitors at bay. it<u+2019>s not a given that these shifts are entirely, or even mostly, because antitrust enforcers turn a blind eye to industry consolidation. these trends may be connected to technological shifts that create <u+201c>returns to scale,<u+201d> or major competitive advantages that accrue to being the biggest company in an industry. they can relate to the <u+201c>network effects<u+201d> that mean a product becomes more valuable the more people use it. those arguments might help explain why boeing and airbus are the only makers of commercial jumbo jets, or why facebook has such a huge share of the social networking market. but those arguments are harder to mount in some sectors, and that<u+2019>s where mrs. clinton has aimed her fire. in an article last year for quartz , for example, mrs. clinton cited consolidation that has whittled the airline industry to four major airlines; high prices for broadband internet, with a de facto monopoly in many cities; and pharmaceutical companies that manage to squeeze profits from drugs even after their patents expire. left-leaning legal scholars have been devising ways to to combat the trend with existing law. <u+201c>none of these outcomes <u+2014> large firms extracting large rents, rising inequality, softening labor markets, stagnating business creation <u+2014> are inevitable,<u+201d> wrote k. sabeel rahman and lina khan in a paper published by the roosevelt institute this summer. <u+201c>instead, they are the product of distinct political and policy choices that the next administration should revamp to make markets more open, fair and competitive.<u+201d> of course, companies seeking to merge would fight in court against more activist regulators who try to stop them. and some mergers can create companies that are more efficient and can produce a broad range of consumer benefits. megamergers have hardly gone away. bayer and monsanto agreed last month to a $66 billion combination that would create a vastly powerful agribusiness company <u+2014> and that has farmers worrying about higher seed prices. but it<u+2019>s now evident that a clinton administration would embrace the idea that the biggest companies shouldn<u+2019>t get any bigger. the upshot provides news, analysis and graphics about politics, policy and everyday life. follow us on facebook and twitter . sign up for our newsletter . a version of this article appears in print on october 5, 2016, on page a13 of the new york edition with the headline: clinton would have means to deal with the power of big companies. order reprints | today's paper | subscribe
liberal economists think big companies are too powerful. hillary clinton agrees.
neil irwin