Political Science

Job Market Title

Monopoly Politics: Price Competition and Learning in the Evolution of Policy Regimes 

Abstract

Many advanced industrial states have experienced a series of long-term policy alternations between favoring price competition and promoting the market power of dominant firms. Based on extensive, original archival evidence in the United States and France, I challenge existing conventional wisdom regarding "national models" of political economy and the origins of economic policy change. I draw on insights from microeconomics, psychology, sociology, and bureaucratic politics to argue that policymakers are drawn to simple mental models of competition or market power that forestall policy reconsideration and predispose leaders to see policies in simple terms of whether they promote competition or not. The endurance of, and eventual changes to, these policy regimes occur primarily because of accumulating diminishing returns to competition or market power, which are initially ignored by policymakers committed to the policy regime. As questions about the dominance of American technology giants rise in public salience, this research provides important theoretical and historical foundations to these ongoing political debates.