Antitrust Regulation and the Restructuring of Grocery Retailing in Britain and the USA

In this paper it is demonstrated how disparities which emerged between British and US grocery retailing in the 1980s—in corporate concentration, power relations, profitability, return on capital employed, and in geographical structure—owe a considerable amount to the differential nature of the regulatory environments in which the industries operated. In particular, the author focuses upon antitrust (competition) legislation and its differential interpretation and enforcement in the two countries. Following a survey of that legislation, the regulatory experience of grocery retailing in the postwar period is considered in detail. The hostility of the US regulatory environment to the development of big capital in retailing throughout much of the period is contrasted with the benign regulatory environment experienced by UK grocery retailers. Finally, the implications of this differential regulatory experience during a more recent period of nonenforcement and regulatory convergence are considered.