ABSTRACT

For the period from 1929 to 1950, there is no present basis for say­ ing whether there was an increase in concentration for non-financial corporations taken as a whole. The increase in manufacturing from 1929 to 1962 is clear. The increase for non-financial and the three sub­ groups after 1950 is highly probable. Also it is established that there was a very considerable increase in over-all concentration from 1929 to 1933, clearly in large part a depression phenomenon, which was pre­ sumably reversed between 1933 and 1939. There is little evidence that World War II changed the degree of concentration significantly. Only a careful repetition of the 1929 study can establish the changes in con­ centration between 1929 and 1950. Working with the available statistics makes me believe that there was not too much change in over-all con­ centration, though what there was was probably upward. A careful repetition of the earlier study would almost certainly find for the period 1929 to 1962 or 1965 a substantial increase, though not at anything like the rate of the 1920’s.