Economic markets have become increasingly concentrated in the United States and around the world. Research has found that concentration of markets can have profound economic and political effects: Market concentration is bad for consumers since it reduces competition and leads to rising prices. Concentration also increases companies’ profits and lowers the share of profits that go to workers. Beyond the economic effects, concentration can also cause political problems: we know large companies have more influence in politics, and they have the potential to use their influence to lower corporate taxes, regulations and further reduce competition. To pushback against increasing market concentration and to encourage market competition, governments can use antitrust, but scholars know relatively little about when antitrust laws and their enforcement are likely to be strengthened.
Given that increasing market concentration provides so many benefits to large corporations, they tend to oppose strengthening antitrust laws and enforcement. We argue that a political counterbalance is needed to incentivize politicians to go against the wishes of big business, and that the public is the most likely group to provide the push for politicians to act. Historically, this was the case during the Gilded Age, which culminated in one of the earliest examples of pro-competition law: the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The public has the potential to play a similar role once again.
However, to understand when and how this may happen, it’s important to know how the public thinks about antitrust policy. In a series of papers, we set out to do exactly this. We ask when Americans support stronger action on antitrust, and we find that Americans are particularly concerned with how antitrust policy affects the ability of American firms to compete in global marketplace and that they are also influences by perceptions of how fair antitrust policies are.
What drives American support for antitrust?
In our research, we surveyed thousands of Americans in the summer of 2020. Within the surveys, we embedded experiments that allowed us to measure baseline levels of support for antitrust across the country, and to test what arguments about antitrust are most influential when it comes to generating support for stronger antitrust policies. The experiments randomly varied the information that people read about antitrust policies and its effects, allowing us to reliably measure how support for antitrust varies in response to different arguments about antitrust.
While we are most interested in when the public is likely to support stronger action on antitrust, it’s important to understand which arguments can persuade the public to increase their support and which arguments might reduce support. We thus randomly varied both positive and negative arguments about antitrust. Some of these arguments were clearly in favor of stronger antitrust action, while others were clearly opposed. We also varied whether the arguments were based in economics, fairness, democratic principles, government overreach, and international competitiveness.
In our baseline group, where respondents only read about what antitrust is, we found that about 59 percent of our respondents supported strengthening antitrust. This suggests that a majority of Americans are likely supportive of stronger antitrust laws, though their opinions are also flexible, as we discuss below.
Economic arguments
Though the public has recently become more concerned about inflation and prices, we did not find that economic arguments move public opinion on antitrust. Most notably, when respondents were informed that that antitrust law helps reduce prices, increases efficiency, or allows small companies to participate in the market, they did not become more supportive of antitrust. On one hand, the lack of a response to these arguments could be because Americans don’t find these to be compelling. On the other hand, it is also possible that Americans already know that antitrust has these effects, and so the information did not lead to people updating their beliefs.
While these common economic arguments were not persuasive, we did find that other types of arguments shifted public support for stronger antitrust policy.
Fairness
Earlier scholarship found that fairness concerns are an important factor shaping economic, social, and political preferences. Consistent with this line of research we also find that fairness is an important factor that influences support for antitrust.
When our experiment shared that antitrust laws can make it more likely that those who work hardest succeed or that antitrust makes it more likely that everyone has an equal chance to succeed, then support for strong antitrust policies increased by about 5 percentage points. Interestingly, these fairness arguments generated comparable effects across the political spectrum, suggesting they were influential for those on the left and right.
Democratic principles
Our study also found that providing information about the democratic effects of antitrust policies also influences public opinion. To test this, some respondents read that antitrust is important for the maintenance of democratic institutions, as it reduces the chance that large domestic companies control government policy. In contrast to the fairness argument which had effects across respondents, the argument about democratic principles had dramatically different effects depending on the partisanship of respondents.
Democrats became much more supportive of antitrust, whereas Republicans did not have a meaningful response to this information. Our findings suggest that Democrats are more concerned about how much power big business has, and they believe that using antitrust to limit corporate power over government is important.
Regulatory overreach
We also found partisan divides in how respondents reacted to arguments about regulatory overreach. The respondents who read that antitrust might punish companies that are successful, since successful companies tend to grow fastest were more likely, on average, to have lower support for antitrust policy. This effect was most pronounced among Republicans, who reacted about twice as strongly to this information as Democrats.
These findings are consistent with Republicans greater concern for government overreach, which appears to also affect their support for antitrust.
American disadvantage
Regulatory burdens may be especially concerning for Americans if they believe that such regulations place American firms at a competitive disadvantage on the global stage. This is an argument frequently put forth by corporate executives, and so we tested its effect by telling some respondents that antitrust could reduce American competitiveness by limiting the size of American companies, putting them at a disadvantage relative to foreign companies.
We found this information had a strong effect, decreasing support for antitrust by about ten percentage. Across our entire study, this was one of the most influential arguments, demonstrating that Americans are especially concerned with U.S. firms’ ability to compete in the global marketplace.
Foreign targeting
While concerns for international competitiveness are important, antitrust policies can be enforced against domestic and foreign firms, which can also affect international competitiveness. In fact, many of the largest antitrust rulings in the United States have been against foreign firms. Since we suspected that most Americans are not aware that antitrust policies can be used against foreign firms, we included a treatment that informed respondents that antitrust it is frequently enforced against foreign firms. This information had different effects depending on who the respondent was.
“Those individuals who are most likely to be skeptical of strengthening antitrust laws are also most likely to react in favor of such policies when they learn that antitrust laws are frequently used against foreign companies.”
-Ryan Brutger and Amy Pond
For more nationalistic respondents, learning that antitrust is used against foreign firms made them much more likely to support strengthening antitrust. There were no effects for those who are less nationalistic. These diverging effects are particularly important given that US antitrust enforcement does frequently have an international scope, and numerous firms based in other countries have been targeted by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice.
Conclusion
Our findings suggest that American support for antitrust policies is heavily influenced by how such policies are perceived to affect American competitiveness. However, Americans can be moved to support or oppose antitrust policies, depending on which arguments they are exposed to. On the one hand, learning that antitrust can harm the competitiveness of domestic firms, makes people less likely to support stronger antitrust policies. On the other hand, learning that antitrust laws are frequently used against foreign firms, makes some Americans more likely to support stronger antitrust policies.
Overall, we find that most Americans are supportive of strengthening antitrust, but their support can shift depending on the arguments they read or are exposed to. Concerns for fairness shape American support, with concerns about companies’ equal ability compete being important. However, Americans are also very concerned about U.S. firms’ competitiveness on the global stage.
Additionally, partisanship plays an important role in shaping how people respond to information about antitrust. Democrats are more concerned than Republicans about curtailing the influence of big businesses in politics, whereas Republicans are more worried about regulatory overreach and the possibility of punishing big businesses for their past success. Taken together, our research suggests that while support for antitrust is significant, there are big differences underpinning that support, which will likely shape the coalition of support for antitrust reforms and the nature of such policy reforms.
Reference
Brutger R, Pond A. (2025) International economic relations and American support for antitrust policy. Business and Politics. 159-179. https://doi:10.1017/bap.2024.35
Coauthors
Amy Pond is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. She conducts research in international and comparative political economy. Her current research looks at how market concentration, asset mobility, and international ownership affect domestic policies, including the provision of public goods like property rights and democratic representation. She has also worked on trade and financial liberalization and the broader logic of institutional change.
