{"insight":{"id":"121542903","lede":"As William Lazonick has argued elsewhere, in some cases, buybacks can be viewed as \"value extraction that lacks a theory of value creation.\"","slug":"stock-buybacks-redirect-available-cash-from-investments-to-repurchase-shares-temp","title":"Stock buybacks redirect available cash from investments to repurchase shares, temporarily driving up share prices at the expense of investment.","showTitleAsQuote":false,"epistemicStatus":"theoretical","reports":[{"id":"69359365","title":"Codetermination","slug":"codetermination"}],"tags":[{"slug":"stock-buybacks","name":"Stock Buybacks","id":"121525245","lede":"

Stock buybacks are the practice of repurchasing company shares on the open market, reducing the outstanding number of shares, thereby increasing share price.

\n","ledeExcerpt":"Stock buybacks are the practice of repurchasing company shares on the open market, reducing the outstanding number of shares, thereby increasing share price.","featured":null},{"slug":"short-termism","name":"Short-Termism","id":"118562815","lede":"

"Short-Termism" is a term often used to critique an excessive focus on short-term results at the expense of long-term interests. For example, in corporate contexts, this can mean making decisions that maximize quarterly revenues at the expense of long-term firm interests or value-creation.

\n","ledeExcerpt":"\"Short-Termism\" is a term often used to critique an excessive focus on short-term results at the expense of long-term interests. For example, in corporate contexts, this can mean making decisions that maximize quarterly revenues at the expense of long-term firm interests or value-creation.","featured":null},{"slug":"neoliberalism","name":"Neoliberalism","id":"118560604","lede":"

Neoliberalism is a school of thought that began taking shape with the formation of The Mont Pelerin Society in the 1940's. It rose to power in the US in the 1980's, with tenets including: free trade benefits all; the government's role in the economy should remain confined to addressing market failures rather than pursuing proactive industrial policy; social benefits should be tied to work requirements; public services should be privatized; industry and finance should be maximally deregulated; stock market prices are accurate signals of all relevant information; deficits invariably lead to inflation; the primary role of indepenedent central banks is to fight inflation; and that taxes invariably discourage work, entrepreneurship, and growth.

\n\n

While the 2020 Biden administration is often suggested as marking the end of neoliberalism's singular hold over policymaking, the question remains: what comes next?

\n","ledeExcerpt":"Neoliberalism is a school of thought that began taking shape with the formation of The Mont Pelerin Society in the 1940's. It rose to power in the US in the 1980's, with tenets including: free trade benefits all; the government's role in the economy should remain confined to addressing market failures rather than pursuing proactive industrial policy; social benefits should be tied to work requirements; public services should be privatized; industry and finance should be maximally deregulated; stock market prices are accurate signals of all relevant information; deficits invariably lead to inflation; the primary role of indepenedent central banks is to fight inflation; and that taxes invariably discourage work, entrepreneurship, and growth.\n\nWhile the 2020 Biden administration is often suggested as marking the end of neoliberalism's singular hold over policymaking, the question remains: what comes next?","featured":null},{"slug":"growth","name":"Growth","id":"23932836","lede":"

We define growth as the expansion of wealth in society; growth is about generating a "a bigger pie".

\n\n

Amidst debates over the merits of continued growth, we begin with the idea that all else equal, a society with growth, with more wealth, is preferable to one with less. Without growth, society becomes a zero-sum distributional game: anyone's gain is another's loss. Growth (all else equal) enables shared prosperity.

\n\n

But there is broad agreement that current measures of growth, such as GDP, are inadequate to the task of providing a suitable proxy to guide further growth. Whether devising improved measures that account for missing elements such as sustainability, equity, leisure time, or digital value, or constructing altogether new proxies (OECD's Better Life Index, for example), the conversation about how best to measure, and thus drive, equitable, regenerative, socially desirable growth is a rich field of debate.

\n","ledeExcerpt":"We define growth as the expansion of wealth in society; growth is about generating a \"a bigger pie\".\n\nAmidst debates over the merits of continued growth, we begin with the idea that *all else equal*, a society with growth, with more wealth, is preferable to one with less. Without growth, society becomes a zero-sum distributional game: anyone's gain is another's loss. Growth (all else equal) enables shared prosperity.\n\nBut there is broad agreement that current measures of growth, such as GDP, are inadequate to the task of providing a suitable proxy to guide further growth. Whether devising revised measures, such as Tyler Cowen's notion of wealth plus\" (GDP, plus measures of leisure time, household production, and environmental considerations), or constructing altogether new proxies (OECD's 'Better Life Index), the conversation about how best to measure, and thus drive, equitable, regenerative, socially desirable growth is a rich field of debate.","featured":true},{"slug":"investment","name":"Investment","id":"121525298","lede":"","ledeExcerpt":"","featured":null},{"slug":"stock-prices","name":"Stock Prices","id":"121539931","lede":"","ledeExcerpt":"","featured":null}],"sources":[{"id":"121542874","lede":"\"Fighting Short-Termism With Worker Power asks, “Can Germany’s co-determination system fix American corporate governance?” Prioritizing immediate increases in share price and payouts at the expense of long-term business investment and growth—a behavior we refer to as short-termism—has driven the inequality crisis in America and weakened our economy. By comparing the German stakeholder system of co-determination to corporate governance in the U.S., we find that emboldening workers with legitimate stakeholder power can help hold back the forces of short-termism.\"","link":"https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/fighting-short-termism-with-worker-power/","slug":"fighting-short-termism-with-worker-power-roosevelt-institute","kind":"Report","title":"Fighting Short-Termism with Worker Power","year":"2017-01-01","researchers":[{"id":"121542873","location":"Senior Editor and Researcher with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Independent Business Initiative","name":"Susan Holmberg","seoDescription":"","slug":"susan-holmberg"}]}]}}