Note: an earlier version of this post appeared in November 2019. Since then, the problem of monopoly – particularly, the platform giants we could call Big Tech: Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook etc – has grown as a matter of public concern, with the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Antitrust issuing a report calling for major reforms. Also, the research paper on which the blog post is based has now been published: Maryann Feldman, Frederick Guy, and Simona Iammarino. 2020. “Regional Income Disparities, Monopoly and Finance.” Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society rsaa024 (December). You can click through to that or, for the condensed, non-technical version, read on!

The map below shows where the higher paid jobs in the USA were concentrated in 2016; green is for greenbacks.

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