The causes for this, in my mind, are largely because of:
1) regulatory frameworks (which work to protect vested interests in my world view), mean that costs of doing business are higher, defending incumbents from competition. Banking regulation policy, for instance, has explicitly favoured larger institutions.
2) financialisation of basically everything (market values increasing to their discounted cost of capital), means that significant capital is required for many businesses. By this I mean the normal interpretation of capital for a business, but also the precursors such as high residential real estate + mortgages reducing the incentives to take risk in a new business, pushing people to already established businesses.
3) weird incentives around work and welfare distort the labour market, and hence the propensity for people to take on low wage jobs in smaller businesses. See high numbers of disabilities for instance.
4) globalisation generally means that the businesses that remain are probably bigger (I hypothesize)
1) regulatory frameworks (which work to protect vested interests in my world view), mean that costs of doing business are higher, defending incumbents from competition. Banking regulation policy, for instance, has explicitly favoured larger institutions.
2) financialisation of basically everything (market values increasing to their discounted cost of capital), means that significant capital is required for many businesses. By this I mean the normal interpretation of capital for a business, but also the precursors such as high residential real estate + mortgages reducing the incentives to take risk in a new business, pushing people to already established businesses.
3) weird incentives around work and welfare distort the labour market, and hence the propensity for people to take on low wage jobs in smaller businesses. See high numbers of disabilities for instance.
4) globalisation generally means that the businesses that remain are probably bigger (I hypothesize)