WHEN Amazon announced in June that it would buy Whole Foods, an upmarket grocer, for $13.7bn, other firms shuddered. The spread of Amazonian tentacles is worrying to those wary of concentrated corporate power. But shoppers entering their local Whole Foods these days find oddly low prices alongside the new stacks of Echoes, Amazon’s voice-activated digital helpmate. This raises a question. Is Amazon hellbent on building a world-straddling monopoly, or merely injecting innovation and competition into yet another new market? For antitrust regulators, the welfare of the consumer is the priority. Yet working out how to protect it is harder than ever.

6月，亚马逊宣布将以137亿美元的价格收购高档食品零售商全食超市，这则消息其它企业不寒而栗。亚马逊的规模扩张令那些对势力集中的企业持谨慎态度的人士感到担忧。不过，当消费者进入当地全食超市时，会发现亚马逊的语音数字助手Echo旁的价签出奇地低。这就引出了一个问题:亚马逊是否在努力打造一个称霸世界的垄断企业，还是仅仅是将创新和竞争注入另一个新的市场？对于反垄断监管机构来说，消费者的福利是首位的。然而，如何保护消费者的利益比以往任何时候都困难。

Competitiveness in most industries is a matter of degree. In the idealised marketplace of economics textbooks, the price people pay for goods equals the cost of producing an additional unit. Any higher, the theory goes, a competitor could cut the price a smidgen, sell another unit and profit. Yet outside commodity markets, most firms can charge more than marginal cost. Competing products are not perfect substitutes (no two brands of pasta sauce are exactly the same) and rivals cannot swoop in at once. The more distinctive a product, and the higher the barriers to entry, the more its seller resembles the nasty monopolies of the textbooks: raising prices and gouging profits. Breaking up such monopolies—as America’s regulators once carved up Standard Oil and AT&T—is good for consumers and the economy as a whole.

在大多数行业中，竞争力都有一个“度”的问题。在经济学教科书的理想市场概念中，人们为商品支付的价格等于生产额外单位的成本。理论上说，任何价格更高的竞争对手都可以降低一点价格，出售另一个产品并从中获利。然而，在商品市场之外，大多数公司的收费都远高于成本。竞争产品并不是完美的替代品(没有两个品牌的意大利面酱是完全一样的)，而且竞争对手也不能马上趁虚而入。一个产品越有特色，进入市场的门槛就越高，它的卖家就越像教科书中的严重垄断概念:提高价格，哄骗利润。为打破这种垄断——美国的监管机构曾经瓜拆分标准石油和AT&A——这对消费者和整个经济形势都有好处。

If the competitiveness of markets is a spectrum, research suggests that American business has been moving along it, and not in the right direction. A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, by Jan De Loecker of Princeton University and Jan Eeckhout of University College, London, provides some stark evidence. The authors analyse data on publicly traded American firms from 1950 to 2014. From 1950 to 1980, average mark-ups—that is, what firms charge customers above their cost of production—were relatively low (and flat), at about 18% over cost. Since 1980, however, mark-ups have risen steadily, to 67% on average. That translates into growth in the consumer-price level, relative to firms’ costs, of about 1% per year.

有研究表明，如果市场的竞争力是一个频谱，美国企业一直在跟随它的脚步，而不是朝着正确的方向前进。普林斯顿大学的Jan De Loecker和伦敦大学学院Jan Eeckhout的一份新的研究报告提供了一些确凿的证据。报告作者分析了1950年到2014年美国上市公司的数据。从1950年到1980年，平均价格——即企业在生产成本之上对客户收取的费用——相对较低(持平)，约为18%。然而，自1980年以来，涨价幅度稳步上升，达到了平均水平的67%。这意味着消费者价格水平的增长，相对于公司的成本每年约为1%。

But this rise in market power comes in several guises, with varying implications for consumers. In some industries—such as airlines, telecoms and retail banking—the public seems to be getting a raw deal. Consolidation has been accompanied by high profits and shoddy service. Elsewhere, however, margins are probably rising as a result of product differentiation and personalisation. A name-brand designer, for instance, can charge a premium because the fashions sold by competitors, whatever their beauty, cannot (legally) carry that name. A firm selling bespoke IT services is in an analogous position. In tailoring its services to a customer’s unique circumstances, it provides something of value and raises the cost of switching, earning itself room to charge a premium. Niche products seem to be on the rise in some professional services, in corners of the retail industry and on the high street—where quirky cocktail bars can charge far more than less funky mass-market watering holes. Such markets fall short of the ideal of perfect competition, but nor are they examples of lazy monopolies ripping off hapless consumers.

不过市场力量的增长有几种形式，对消费者产生了不同的影响。在一些行业，如航空、电信和零售银行，人们似乎都在遭受不公平的待遇。行业整合一直伴随着高额利润和劣质的服务。然而，在其它行业，由于产品差异化和个性化，利润率可能正在上升。例如，名牌设计师可以收取高价，因为竞争对手出售的时装，无论多么的漂亮，都不能(合法地)标上它们的名字。一家销售定制IT服务的公司处于类似的境地。在为客户的独特环境量身定制服务时，它提供了一些价值，并提高了转换成本，为自己赚取了额外的费用。在一些专业服务领域，小众产品似乎正在兴起，遍及零售行业的各个角落，在主要街道上，古怪的鸡尾酒酒吧的收费远远高于不那么时髦的大众市场的酒吧。这样的市场缺乏完美竞争的典范，但是也不是那些懒惰的垄断企业剥削倒霉的消费者的例子。

Amazon and other big internet firms belong to a different category from both the lumbering bullies of the airline industry and wallet-draining boutiques. High rates of profit combined with industry consolidation suggest there is no shortage of market power in the tech world. But it is tricky to work out what that means for consumers. In some cases, market power (and associated profits) can be seen as the prize for costly innovation. That, after all, is the logic behind patents, which reward inventors for making knowledge public by granting them a temporary monopoly. Indeed, market power can be a lure to innovation. Constructing a new telecoms network is good for consumers but expensive; the reason to do it is the knowledge that it will not be viable for latecomers to compete away the first mover’s profits.

亚马逊等互联网巨头与庞大的航天业及价格高的离谱的精品店属于不同的类别。高利润率加上行业整合表明，科技界并不缺乏市场力量。但是，要弄清楚这对消费者意味着什么是很棘手。在某些情况下，市场力量(以及相关利润)可以被视为代价高昂的创新的奖赏。毕竟，这是专利背后的逻辑，它奖励发明者，让他们获得暂时的垄断权，从而使知识公开。事实上，市场力量可以成为创新的诱饵。建设一个新的电信网络是对消费者有利的，不过代价很高；这样做的理由是，后来者交易专柜能够抢占先行者的利润是不可行的。

When there are benefits to scale, dominant firms can cut costs and fatten margins without raising prices. The pile of data amassed by Google, for example, gives it an extraordinary edge in selling personalised advertisements, but also allows it to serve all its customers more effectively. And in the tech world, market power can be tenuous. New platforms displace old ones, and fresh technologies can undercut the value even of sprawling physical networks. Yet innovation-derived market power should not give firms a free pass—even if prices fall as a result.

当有规模效益的时候，占主导地位的企业能在不提高价格的情况下削减成本，提升利润率。例如，谷歌在积累的大量数据，在定制广告销售方面具有巨大的优势，并能更有效地服务于所有客户。在科技领域，市场的力量是薄弱的。新平台取代旧平台，新技术甚至可以削弱庞大的物理网络的价值。然而，即使价格下跌，衍生的市场力量也不应该给企业自由通行证。

Kale joys

消费者受益

Tech giants like Apple and Facebook work to enmesh their customers in ecosystems that are difficult to escape from. Big firms can use the hordes of customers acquired in one business to put pressure on suppliers or squeeze customers in another. Microsoft once argued that bundling its browser with its Windows operating system gave consumers an extra boon at no cost; rivals thought consumers would lose out by becoming more captive to Microsoft’s systems. The question hanging over today’s antitrust debates is whether startling deals for consumers—from Gmail to cut-price organic almond butter—are the happy by-products of innovation or the foundations of formidable barriers to competition, which will ultimately harm consumers.

苹果与Facebook等科技巨头正在努力让他们的消费者在难以摆脱的生态系统中寻找机会。大公司可以利用在一项业务中获得的大量消费者对供应商施加压力，或者在另一个企业中压榨消费者。微软曾经辩称，将其浏览器与Windows操作系统捆绑销售给消费者带来了额外的免费福利；竞争对手认为，消费者会因为更多地受制于微软的系统而有所损失。在今天的反垄断争端中，一个悬而未决的问题是，从Gmail到降价的有机杏仁黄油，这些是创新带来的使人快乐的副产品，还是竞争的巨大障碍的基础，最终会伤害消费者。

For now, the grocery market seems healthy enough. Amazon’s annual sales are less than a third those of Walmart and its share of the grocery market is an unimpressive 2%, even after its recent acquisition. Both Amazon loyalists and Whole Foods shoppers are likely to enjoy the perks of the combination, and cheaper avocados will come as a relief to hungry hipsters. But regulators must be vigilant, lest the time come to say: Stop! Good buy to all that.

就目前而言，杂货市场的发展似乎足够健康。 亚马逊的年销售额不到沃尔玛的三分之一，即便在最近的收购行动之后，其在食品杂货市场的份额仍然是不起眼的2％。 亚马逊的忠实粉丝和全食超市的消费者都可能享受这种组合的津贴，更便宜的鳄梨将成为饥饿的时尚人士的解脱。 但监管机构必须保持警惕，以免到了该说：“停！所有人都买得起。”的时候。

编译：靳婷

审校：马佳艺

编辑：翻吧君

来源：经济学人