Is the U.S. Losing Its Competitive Edge? Economist to Address at Angelo State

SAN ANGELO, TX - Dr. Brian Albrecht, the chief economist of the International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE), will give a special guest presentation at Angelo State University on Thursday, Nov. 14, at 5:30 p.m. in the Houston Harte University Center, 1910 Rosemont Drive.

Sponsored by the Texas Tech University Free Market Institute at Angelo State University, Albrecht's presentation will take place in University Center's C.J. Davidson Conference Center and is free and open to the public.

In his presentation titled "Has the U.S. Lost Its Competitive Edge?" Albrecht will address the questions, "Are U.S. markets competitive?" and "What makes markets competitive?" He will also challenge several common misconceptions about measuring market competition.

While headlines point to doom surrounding rising concentration, increasing markups, and declining business dynamism as evidence of weakening U.S. markets, Albrecht will argue that these metrics often fail to capture how modern competition actually works. Instead, the U.S. markets remain uniquely effective at allocating resources to their most productive uses, driving technological progress. The data suggests that rather than losing its competitive edge, the U.S. economy has moved ahead - with technological change and global trade reshaping how firms compete and markets function.

At ICLE since 2022, Albrecht is responsible for the application and integration of theoretical and empirical economic methodologies into ICLE's research. His research focuses on price theory, information economics, competition and innovation, and political economy. He has published in multiple academic journals, including Contemporary Economic Policy, Public Choice, PLoS ONE, the Journal of Macroeconomics and the Journal of Economic Methodology, as well as in popular media, like the Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Hill, and City Journal. He also writes the Economic Forces newsletter for Substack.

Albrecht earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 2020 and previously served as an assistant professor of economics at Kennesaw State University until 2023.

The TTU Free Market Institute at ASU aims to advance research and teaching related to the free enterprise system, and donor support helps the institute continue its speaker series and student programming. In celebration of the institute's five years on the ASU campus, an anonymous donor has pledged to match all future monetary gifts for the institute up to $250,000. Gifts can be made online at angelo.edu/fmi or by contacting the ASU Office of Development and Alumni Relations at 325-942-2116.