@Alon @avi oh yes. Italy or India style dwarfism can be a tremendous problem for overall productivity. but that derives i think from different set of problems than potentially talented middle managers alienated from their work product. there are diseconomies of nonscale, and very different social diseconomies of consolidation (even where they seem to the private consolidators to be economies). 1/

@Alon @avi as usual, probably what is desirable is an interior solution, firms large enough to actually have middle managements who might potentially shepherd long-term projects, but not so large they are insulated from (or more accurately, can externalize) the consequences of their own mismanagement. /fin