INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
by Jackson HoleA discussion of competition and “superstar” firms at an exclusive economic policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming,
threw up a spirited defense of global trade, while central bankers were also warned of the low level of trust they enjoy among the
public.
“We should think twice about undermining the discipline of openness” and the competition that’s created by global trade, said
Agustin Carstens, head of the Bank for International Settlements, during Saturday’s session of the annual meeting hosted by the Kansas
City Fed in Grand Teton National Park.
Carstens, a former governor of the Bank of Mexico, also specifically warned that revoking the North
American Free Trade Agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada “would only create losers,” with higher import costs and lost export
opportunities overwhelming any resulting wage gains
It could also lead to a global currency war, he said.
Jackson Hole delegates debated evidence that economic concentration — best
illustrated by companies like Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and Apple Inc — was eroding competition and hurting workers,
consumers and overall economic growth.
Part of the fallout of superstar firms is the resentment of economic elites among workers not
employed by dynamic, growing companies, said Raghuram Rajan, a University of Chicago professor and former governor of the Reserve Bank of
He added that central bankers were the “quintessential elite.”
“They talk about global effects and don’t talk about local mainstream
“They’re over-educated and talk in a language no one else can understand.”
That remoteness, combined with their role in the rescue of
big banks in the global financial crisis, has led to a “tremendous loss of trust” in central bankers among the public, he said.
