Antitrust Radar
AR-T04 / institutional research topic

Places and local markets

Geographic Competition

How does competitive structure vary across national, state, county, tract, route, and other local frames?
Connect place-based concentration screens to their exact geography, source vintage, ownership rules, and local-market research needs.
Evidence architecture5/5 active lanes
  1. Publications7editions
  2. Agenda questions6questions
  3. Issue programs4programs
  4. Public datasets5datasets
  5. Analysis routes5routes
Bar length is relative within this topicCounts retain different units
Publications
7
4 permanent series
Agenda questions
6
4 issue programs
Public datasets
5
17,686 declared rows
Source links
24
reviewed through Jul 21, 2026

Topic boundary. A statewide, county, tract, or national screen does not establish a legal geographic market. Medians of local HHIs are not interchangeable with one national HHI.

Evidence standard
Institutional research topicGeographic Competition7 publications / 5 active releases / 5 evidence lanes

Research contract

Question, mandate, boundary, and evidence need

Public question

How does competitive structure vary across national, state, county, tract, route, and other local frames?

Institutional mandate

Connect place-based concentration screens to their exact geography, source vintage, ownership rules, and local-market research needs.

Interpretation boundary

A statewide, county, tract, or national screen does not establish a legal geographic market. Medians of local HHIs are not interchangeable with one national HHI.

Evidence still needed

Area-level shares and distributions, ownership and entry histories, local prices and quality, commuting or procurement patterns, capacity, switching, and stable geographic definitions.

Primary audienceLocal officials, researchers, journalists, and community advocates

Publication chronology

How this subject entered the public record.

Every institutional release date remains on the axis, including dates with no publication assigned to this topic.
Active releases
5 / 6
Topic publications
7
Largest release
2
Release footprint by publication seriesHeight = new topic publications
  1. 0cumulative0 new
  2. 1cumulative1 new
  3. 2cumulative1 new
  4. 3cumulative1 new
  5. 5cumulative2 new
  6. 7cumulative2 new

Publication chronology, not impact. Counts describe when current corpus items entered the register. They are not output targets, quality measures, or evidence of policy effect.

Publication register

7 citable publications

Exact theme memberships across 4 permanent series.
State of CompetitionAR-SC1Methods and MeasuresAR-MM0Public Data NotesAR-DN1Research BriefsAR-RB3Competition InsightsAR-CI2International BriefsAR-ICP0
  1. AR-CI-2026-04Competition Insights

    Domain readout / United States

    Geographic concentration screens point in different directions at different scales.

    Six FCC and FDIC comparisons retain their own geography, ownership rule, reporting universe, and time interval.
    Published
    Aug 12, 2026
    Sources reviewed
    Jul 21, 2026
    Evidence
    6
    Source links
    2
  2. AR-CI-2026-05Competition Insights

    Focused note / United States

    National fixed-broadband HHI rose while three geographic medians fell.

    One FCC release provides a useful scale comparison, but the national value and medians of area-level HHIs remain different summary statistics.
    Published
    Aug 12, 2026
    Sources reviewed
    Jul 21, 2026
    Evidence
    4
    Source links
    1
  3. AR-RB-2026-06Competition Research Briefs

    Research brief / United States

    Fixed Broadband Concentration Across Geographic Scales, 2020-2024

    A four-scale FCC concentration history showing why a rising national HHI and falling subnational medians must be read together without converting them into one market.
    Published
    Jul 24, 2026
    Sources reviewed
    Jul 21, 2026
    Evidence
    1
    Source links
    1
  4. AR-RB-2026-07Competition Research Briefs

    Research brief / United States

    State Individual Insurance Concentration, 2024

    A 51-jurisdiction KFF concentration cross-section showing where high HHI, leading-insurer share, and thin rival depth coincide, with every result bounded to the 2024 ACA individual market.
    Published
    Jul 24, 2026
    Sources reviewed
    Jun 23, 2026
    Evidence
    1
    Source links
    1
  5. AR-RB-2026-03Competition Research Briefs

    Research brief / United States

    State Banking Structure, 2015-2025

    Shows how a nearly unchanged national HHI can coexist with large state-level movements, classification turnover, and declining branch and organization counts.
    Published
    Jul 20, 2026
    Sources reviewed
    Jul 19, 2026
    Evidence
    1
    Source links
    1
  6. AR-SC-2026-01State of Competition

    State of competition report / United States

    The U.S. Competition Landscape

    A source-backed state-of-competition briefing across markets, industries, state systems, local banking screens, mergers, and enforcement, with every system kept in its own analytical universe.
    Published
    Jul 19, 2026
    Sources reviewed
    Jul 19, 2026
    Evidence
    14
    Source links
    14
  7. AR-DN-2026-02Public Data Notes

    Data note / United States

    Housing Competition Needs Local Ownership Data

    Explains why the housing profile reports public stress signals while withholding HHI pending local firm-level ownership and rental market-share data.
    Published
    Jun 21, 2026
    Sources reviewed
    Jun 21, 2026
    Evidence
    4
    Source links
    4

Evidence systems

Questions, programs, datasets, and analysis routes

Every lane retains its own unit and source contract.

Research agenda

6 bounded questions
  1. GeographyWhich areas and provider-share changes account for movement in the tract median, and how wide is the distribution hidden by the median?Median census tract / Residential fixed broadband Tract median
  2. GeographyWhich areas and provider-share changes account for movement in the county median, and how wide is the distribution hidden by the median?Median county / Residential fixed broadband County median
  3. GeographyWhich areas and provider-share changes account for movement in the state median, and how wide is the distribution hidden by the median?Median state / Residential fixed broadband State median
  4. GeographyWhich state-specific paths, ownership-reporting changes, branch-booking patterns, entry, exit, or consolidation events account for movement beneath the cross-sectional median?Statewide branch-deposit screens / Median statewide bank-deposit HHI
  5. GeographyWhat provider-share, technology, speed-tier, entry, and geographic composition changes explain the rise in national HHI while median subnational HHIs declined?U.S. fixed broadband connections / Residential fixed broadband National HHI
  6. GeographyHow can the nearly stable national aggregate be reconciled with state-level movement, organization turnover, branch change, and nominal deposit growth?United States branch-deposit screen / National bank-deposit HHI

Issue programs

4 editorial programs
  1. 19 evidence linksCommunications infrastructureWhere do local communications concentration, network access, switching, and investment constrain rivalry across separately measured wireless and fixed systems?
  2. 16 evidence linksHousing access and local powerWhich local ownership, pricing, supply, and platform records can identify where renters face weakened competitive choice?
  3. 23 evidence linksTransportation networksHow do route-level entry, capacity, airport constraints, and consolidation shape passenger choice beyond national shares?
  4. 10 evidence linksFood systems and buyer powerHow does buyer concentration in regional cattle procurement affect producer options, contract terms, and supply-chain resilience?

Public datasets

5 reusable contracts
  1. 102 rows / 17 fieldsGeographic concentrationTwo separately bounded state competition systems: KFF individual-health insurance concentration and Antitrust Radar calculations from FDIC Summary of Deposits branch balances, with opt-in 2015-2025 statewide banking history.
  2. 3,104 rows / 19 fieldsCounty banking screensCurrent county and county-equivalent FDIC Summary of Deposits branch-balance screens with profile handoffs, plus exact 2015-2025 annual history through the history=true query, vintage-specific ranks, and legal-market guardrails.
  3. 36 rows / 15 fieldsFixed broadband concentrationFCC source-reported HHI for residential fixed connections of at least 100/20 Mbps at the national level and as medians across states, counties, and census tracts for nine semiannual periods from 2020 through 2024.
  4. 14,427 rows / 25 fieldsAntitrust indicatorsNormalized, source-custodied observations for bounded national-context, market, industry, state, and federal merger-activity indicators, plus 15 exact entity-period relationship contracts and a guarded multidimensional cube mode that retain each series' unit and boundary.
  5. 17 rows / 26 fieldsResearch coverage atlasEconomy-wide sector ledger joining Census screening breadth, strict historical matches, exact curated market mappings, linked enforcement records, published reports, and source custody without a composite score. Queue mode lists published six-digit HHI screens without an exact curated market mapping.

Analysis routes

5 declared handoffs
  1. 01 / profileGeography atlasState competition profiles
  2. 02 / dataLocal bankingCounty FDIC deposit screens
  3. 03 / dataFixed broadbandFCC HHI across four scales
  4. 04 / compareCompare statesSame-system geographic comparisons
  5. 05 / researchResearch coveragePublished sector and source footprint
Topic collection citation

Antitrust Radar. (2026). Geographic Competition [Research topic]. Antitrust Radar.

Open publication citations