After weeks of delay, the government formally authorized a transition of power to President-elect Joe Biden. But even before this step, businesses have shifted focus to the new administration, as Mr. Biden picked key members of his cabinet — including Janet Yellen as his Treasury secretary, which would make her the first woman in the role (after she was the first chairwoman of the Fed).

The General Services Administration designated Mr. Biden as the apparent victor, following certification of the voting results in Michigan and more legal defeats for the Trump campaign in other states. The decision also came amid growing pressure from Corporate America, with more than 100 business leaders urging the government to begin the transition process in a letter yesterday, the latest such call.

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“Time is of the essence,” said Mr. Steele, who is also a senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, the antimonopoly research group behind a new report titled “The New Money Trust.” The pandemic has highlighted how entrenched these money managers have become, as when the Federal Reserve hired BlackRock to manage its emergency bond-buying programs, which purchased E.T.F.s that included funds run by a separate arm of BlackRock. Economies of scale allow index fund managers to offer investments at low (or no) cost to customers, but the seeming inevitability of their success, which builds on itself, also raises competition and conflict-of-interest concerns, Mr. Steele said.