Real Economies of Integration and Large-Scale Production Versus Advantages of Domination

Abstract

Industrial development has been characterized by a steady growing tendency towards the formation of large enterprises on the one hand, and the development of various types of concentration and integration on the other hand. Through this development firms, and combinations of firms, have come into being who occupy a more or less powerful position in the sense that they are able to exert an influence on the economic processes of the market which small firms, or firms before they become members of a combination, can never attain. Concentration and large-scale production have thus led to a profound and decisive change both in the morphological structure of the market and in the possible market behaviour of producers. For purposes of economic analysis, the principally important factor is, of course, the change in possible market behaviour.