Consumers feel their wallets bleeding with every new purchase, from cars to prescription drugs. Buzzwords such as “affordability” make for good political ads, but they don’t explain much, let alone prescribe a solution. To best serve consumers and their budgets, businesses must look to economize production through the often demonized phenomenon of vertical integration.

This term refers to a company internalizing more stages of the production process instead of (or in addition to) working with outside partners. It’s often conflated with a monopoly, where no competition results in one player skimping on quality and naming the price.