Federal Reserve leaders and other central banks are examining whether mounting concentrations of corporate power may be the root causes of low inflation, productivity, wage growth and investment spending in the U.S. for years, reports The New York Times.

Why it matters: Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, told the Times that "questions of monopoly power were studied by specialists in a very technical way, without linking them to the broader issues that animate economic policy." If found to be true, the Times explains that the Fed may lower interest rates for a longer period of time and policymakers refuse to abruptly enact in response to short-term swings in consumer prices.