Vertical and Horizontal Integration in Modern North American Industry

Abstract

​The aim of this paper is to analyze some trends and changes which are taking place within the monopolic industrial structure of the American Economy, laying a special emphasis on some relevant characteristics of the industrial crisis. The nature of this crisis is, according to the author, a structural and long term one, something which can be seen not only in the type of monopolic arrangement its industry has, but also in the ever more weaker trend towards capital formation and the slow increase in its productivity relative to other economies, even in key areas such as microelectronics and the production of capital goods. In the last decade the America economy has shown how it is less solidly jointed than other economies to compete in, and head, outwards.