The name is absent

Number 3/2002/p. 1-28

A Journal of the Canadian Agricultural Economics Society

A Review of Causes for and

Consequences of Economic Concentration
in the U.S. Meatpacking Industry

Clement E. Ward

Professor and Extension Economist, Oklahoma State University

This paper was prepared for presentation at the conference The Economics of
Concentration in the Agri-Food Sector, sponsored by the Canadian Agricultural Economics
Society, Toronto, Ontario, April 27-28, 2001

The Issue

This squall between the packers and the producers of this country ought to have
blown over forty years ago, but we still have it on our hands ....

Senator John B. Kendrick of Wyoming, 1919

Clear and continuing changes in the structure of the U.S. meatpacking industry have
significantly increased economic concentration since the mid-1970s. Concentration
levels are among the highest of any industry in the United States, and well above levels
generally considered to elicit non-competitive behavior and result in adverse economic
performance, thereby triggering antitrust investigations and subsequent regulatory actions.
Many agricultural economists and others deem this development paradoxical. While several
civil antitrust lawsuits have been filed against the largest meatpacking firms, there have been
no major antitrust decisions against those firms and there have been no significant federal
government antitrust cases brought against the largest meatpacking firms over the period
coincident with the period of major structural changes.

The structural changes in the U.S. meatpacking industry raise a number of questions.
What is the nature of the changes and what economic factors caused them? What evidence is

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