Amazon Inc: Competitors Examples and Boe Staffers

amazon inc: Andy Haldane's paper, jointly authored with seven BOE staffers, adds to a growing literature on the role played in the economy by superstar' firms whose deep pockets and millions of customers mean they have few serious competitors, according to The Toronto Star. Examples cited by researchers have included Amazon Inc. in retail and Google parent Alphabet Inc. in technology. Andy Haldane, chief economist of the U.K. central bank, in a paper presented at the Kansas City Fed's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., said BOE simulations suggest that when big firms grow to dominate their markets, their ability to raise prices at will appears to have significant knock-on effects on inflation and economic growth. Simon Dawson/Bloomberg News Shifts in market power might plausibly have altered some of the key macroeconomic relationships in the economy, Mr. Haldane said. Haldane said, according to a text of his remarks released by the BOE. In such monopoly-like conditions, the BOE simulations resulted in big swings in inflation and output from their long-term averages, making the task of stabilizing the economy by tweaking interest rates more challenging, Mr. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.