The Wires of War: Technology and the Global Struggle for Power
by
Jacob Helberg
Published 11 Oct 2021
-China Economic and Security Review Commission, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2019-11/Chapter%203%20Section%202%20-%20Emerging%20Technologies%20and%20Military-Civil%20Fusion%20-%20Artificial%20Intelligence,%20New%20Materials,%20and%20New%20Energy.pdf. 33 Atkinson, “The Case for a National Industrial Strategy to Counter China’s Technological Rise.” 34 Hillary Clinton, “Moving beyond quarterly capitalism,” Medium, July 24, 2015, https://medium.com/hillary-for-america/moving-beyond-quarterly-capitalism-7abec53733f6. 35 “President Obama Announces Two New Public-Private Manufacturing Innovation Institutes and Launches the First of Four New Manufacturing Innovation Institute Competitions,” The White House, February 25, 2014, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/02/25/president-obama-announces-two-new-public-private-manufacturing-innovation. 36 “FACT SHEET: President Obama Announces New Manufacturing Innovation Hub in Knoxville, Tennessee,” The White House, January 9, 2015, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/09/fact-sheet-president-obama-announces-new-manufacturing-innovation-hub-kn. 37 Mark Muro, “No matter which way you look at it, tech jobs are still concentrating in just a fe1w cities,” Brookings Institution, March 3, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/research/tech-is-still-concentrating/. 38 Mae Rice, “The Tech Industry Has Outgrown the Bay Area,” Built In, May 13, 2020, https://builtin.com/founders-entrepreneurship/mighty-middle-report. 39 “R&D as Percent of the Federal Budget,” Budget of the U.S.
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-China Economic and Security Review Commission has suggested).32 Robert Atkinson, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation president, has floated the idea of a 45 percent Competitiveness Tax Credit for businesses that invest in R&D, skills training, and setting global standards.33 We should also reform “quarterly capitalism,” as many have advocated.34 By revising the definition of “long-term” investments—taxing investments sold in the first few years as regular income, with a sliding scale that reduces tax rates each subsequent year—we could incentivize shareholders and executives to prioritize bigger projects with higher risk.
What Went Wrong: How the 1% Hijacked the American Middle Class . . . And What Other Countries Got Right
by
George R. Tyler
Published 15 Jul 2013
The average holding period has declined from seven years in the 1950s to six months today.22 And Jesse Eisinger of the investigative journal ProPublica has written that in 2012, shares were being held an average of only four months.23 A major accelerant of investor short-termism is the shift in composition of exchange participants toward money managers anxious to show quarterly gains; impatient money managers now hold 70 percent of all shares of American corporations, compared to just 8 percent in the 1950s, outweighing traditional buy and hold investors. Thus, the vast majority of share traders have become a Greek chorus for quarterly capitalism and the short-termism of CEOs, with little interest and even less incentive to follow more detailed elements of corporate decision making. It’s as though America is competing in the Super Bowl (against Japanese and northern Europe competitors), with our guy Tom Brady limited to three-yard dump-off passes.
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They examined over 600 American firms in documenting serial acquisitions at the expense of vital investment: “Managers that engage in more external acquisitions and diversification also display lower levels of capital expenditures and R&D,” they concluded.36 Analyses by economist Nancy Folbre and separately by Lucian Bebchuk have documented the same phenomenon. Folbre concluded that the structure of American corporate governance “emphasizes the incentives to pursue short-run rather than long-run gains.”37 The choice of American CEOs and boards to short-change investment in pursuit of quarterly capitalism is also revealed in an analysis by John R. Graham, Campbell R. Harvey, and Shiva Rajgopal. They surveyed 401 financial industry leaders in 2004, and found that most executives routinely cut investments, even those viewed as “very valuable,” to attain a smoothly rising earnings record. They explained their conclusions, depicted in Chart 7.2, this way: “The majority of firms view earnings, especially Earnings Per Share, as the key metric for outsiders, even more so than cash flows.
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They concluded that offshoring of R&D and the ensuing technology development abroad tied to it has darkened US growth prospects.48 Moreover, the deindustrialization characteristic of the Reagan decline is especially debilitating to research because manufacturing firms innovate much more than do service firms. Manufacturing employs a disproportionate share of US scientists and engineers, for example, and some 68 percent of R&D spending by the business community comes from manufacturers.49 Reaganomics: American Innovation Prospects Reduced to 43rd Among Global Leaders Quarterly capitalism is a cudgel, punishing firms that divert cash flow to long-term investments, and making R&D and innovation a luxury too few choose to afford. Moreover, the short-termism of Reaganomics has settled into domestic research labs, truncating research time horizons. Silicon Valley experts agree.
Rethinking Capitalism: Economics and Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth
by
Michael Jacobs
and
Mariana Mazzucato
Published 31 Jul 2016
Information is streamed in ever greater volumes and at ever rising velocities. Timelines for decision-making appear to have been compressed. Pressures to deliver immediate results seem to have intensified. Tenure patterns for some of our most important life choices (marriage, jobs, money) are in secular decline.2 Some have called this the era of ‘quarterly capitalism’.3 These forces may be altering not just the way we act, but also the way we think. Neurologically, our brains are adapting to increasing volumes and velocities of information by shortening attention spans. Technological innovation, such as the internet, may have caused a permanent neurological rewiring, as did previous technological revolutions such as the printing press and typewriter.4 Like a transistor radio, our brains may be permanently retuning to a shorter wavelength.
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China Development Bank (CDB) circular economy citizenship goods climate change and capitalism and economics and politics Paris Accord policy Club of Rome Cold War collective goods Compaq compensation contracts competition Japanese law limits perfect competition protected firms and sectors consumerism consumers behaviour benefits choice debt demand protection welfare corporate sector accountability debt financialisation Fortune 500 companies Fortune 1000 companies governance new public management (NPM) organisational models resource allocation D DARPA debt consumer corporate household hysteria private public short-term sovereign debt-to-GDP ratios decarbonisation and structural change democracy and capitalism election campaigns post-democratic politics Department of Defense Department of Energy Department of health developing countries devolution discrimination anti-discrimination laws displacement of peoples Dosi, Giovanni Draghi, Mario E economic and monetary union (EMU) economic growth and inequality and innovation and technology environmental concerns green growth zero growth economic policy and capitalism consensus-building macroeconomic policy monetary expansion reshaping economic theory economic models model of the firm neoclassical orthodox post-Keynesian education access to and skills efficiency employment growth ‘non-standard’ work energy sector storage technologies environmental impacts environmental risk damage degradation sustainability technologies euro zone debt-to-GDP ratio economic policy fiscal policy GDP growth government lending investment macroeconomic conditions private investment productivity growth recession southern countries sovereign debt unemployment European Central Bank (ECB) role European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) European Investment Bank (EIB) proposed new European Fund for Investment European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) European Stability Mechanism European Union (EU) competition law debt-to-GDP ratio de-industrialisation GDP growth government lending Growth Compact investment-led recovery macroeconomic conditions monetary expansion policy framework private investment productivity growth Stability and Growth Pact unemployment executive pay F Federal Reserve financial crash of 1929 financial crash of 2008 financial markets borrowing discrimination efficient markets hypothesis mispricing short-termism systemic risks financial regulation Finland public innovation research and development universal basic income firms business models in perfect competition productive firm First World War fiscal austerity fiscal compact fiscal consolidation fiscal deficits fiscal policy fiscal tightening food insecurity Forstater, Matthew Fortune 500 companies Fortune 1000 firms fossil fuels fracking France average real wage index labour productivity growth private debt public deficit unemployment Freeman, Chris Friedman, Milton G G4S Gates, Bill Germany average real wage index GDP green technology investment state investment bank unemployment wages global financial system globalisation and welfare state asymmetric first golden age Godley, Wynne Goldman Sachs Goodfriend, Marvin Google governments and innovation deficits failures intervention by modernisation of risk-taking Graham, Benjamin Great Depression Greece austerity bailouts debt problems GDP investment activity public deficit unemployment green technology green direction for innovation greenhouse gas emissions Greenspan, Alan Grubb, Michael H Hatzius, Jan health and climate change older people Hirschman, Albert history Integration with theory home mortgage specialists household income housing purchases value I IBM income distribution industrial revolution inequality adverse effects and economic performance China ethnicity explanation for income international trend OECD countries opportunities redistributive policies reinforcement reversing rise taxation UK wealth inflation information and communications technologies (ICT) consumer demand green direction internet of things online education planned obsolescence innovation and climate change and companies and government and growth innovative enterprise path-dependence public sector institutions European financial role Intel interest rates and quantitative easing Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) International Energy Agency (IEA) International Labour Organization (ILO) International Monetary Fund (IMF) Studies investment and theory of the firm crowding out decline in investment in innovation private private vs publicly owned firms public public–private investment partnerships investment-led growth Ireland debt problems investment activity Public deficit Israel public venture capital fund research and development Italy average real wage index debt problems GDP Income inequality unemployment J Japan average real wage index competitive advantage over US GDP wages Jobs, Steve Juncker, Jean-Claude K Kay Review Keynes, John Maynard KfW Knight, Frank Koo, Richard Krueger, Alan Krugman, Paul L labour markets insecurity of regulation structures United States labour productivity and wages declining growth public deficit unemployment Lehman Brothers Lerner, Abba liquidity crisis Lloyd George, David lobbying corporate M Maastricht Treaty Malthus, Thomas market economy theory markets behaviour failure uncertainty Marshall, Alfred Marx, Karl McCulley, Paul Merrill Lynch Mill, John Stuart Minsky, Hyman mission oriented investment monetary policy money and fiscal policy and macroeconomic policy bank money electronic transactions endogenous exogenous fiat money government bonds IOUs modern money theory quantity theory theories monopolies monopoly rents natural Moore, Gordon N NASA nanotechnology National Health Service (NHS) National Institutes of Health (NIH) national savings neoliberalism corporate Newman, Frank Newton, Isaac O Obama, Barack P patents patient capital patient finance see patient capital Penrose, Edith Piketty, Thomas PIMCO Pisano, Gary Polanyi, Karl Portugal austerity bailout debt problems GDP investment activity unemployment privatisation productivity marginal productivity theory productive firm unproductive firm – see also labour productivity public deficits public goods public organisations and change public policy and change evaluation role public service outsourcing public spending public–private investment partnerships Q quantitative easing quarterly capitalism R Reagan, Ronald recessions Reinhart, Carmen renewable energy policy rents and banks increase rent-seeking research and development (R&D) state organisations Ricardo, David risk-taking – mitigation of risk role of the state Rogoff, Kenneth Roosevelt, Franklin D.
Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero
by
Tyler Cowen
Published 8 Apr 2019
I do think that a lot of supercharged severance payments are just manipulation of the system, but still, it would be quite wrong to think the practice has no efficiency justifications whatsoever. Consumers probably end up with a better mix of goods and services in a world where large severance payments are allowed than in a world where they are banned.27 ARE COMPANIES TOO FOCUSED ON THE SHORT TERM? Another common complaint is that we live in a world of “quarterly capitalism,” or “short-termism,” as it is sometimes called. In this view, corporations focus on short-term earnings and neglect various forms of long-term investment, including in their workers, in research and development, and in cultivating their future capabilities. In reality, this is usually another complaint about CEO pay.
No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends
by
Richard Dobbs
and
James Manyika
Published 12 May 2015
A world in which 80 percent of companies feel pressure to demonstrate strong financial performance over a period shorter than two years is of particular concern for public companies, which tend to belong to large asset owners such as pension funds.72 Outside investors and market pressures often drive publicly held companies into a “quarterly capitalism” rut. Given that companies borrow, invest, and make capital decisions over ten- and even thirty-year periods, this is problematic. Companies will need to revisit their mind-set for making investment decisions so they can create more value over the long run. To lead these changes, asset owners will need to define long-term objectives and risk appetites more carefully and structure their portfolios accordingly.
The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers (Wiley Finance)
by
Feng Gu
Published 26 Jun 2016
Strictly speaking, since we consider these items investments, or capital, the amortization of the excluded, capitalized expenses should be considered an operating expense. For simplicity, we abstract here from this amortization, which will somewhat reduce our measure of the value created. 7. For simplicity, we subtract the quarterly capital expenditures, rather than a 3to 5-year average. 8. Based on 2.5 percent (10 percent annual) cost of capital times average Q2-2013 and Q2-2012 ending shareholder equity book value. The 10 percent is, of course, only a convenient proxy for cost of capital. Sirius “systematic risk,” or 𝛽 value is quite high: 1.65 according to Yahoo!
The Firm
by
Duff McDonald
Published 1 Jun 2014
The paper was a clarion call for business leaders to take control of their own destiny by reforming “the system” before governments exerted control. It was also a reaffirmation of one of McKinsey’s basic tenets: that business should be a force for good, and that it was incumbent on executives to fix the failures of “governance, decision-making, and leadership.” In it, Barton espoused a move from what he called “quarterly capitalism” to “long-term capitalism.” “In my view, the most striking difference between East and West is the time frame leaders consider when making major decisions,” he wrote, drawing on the twelve-plus years he’d spent in Asia. “In my discussions with the South Korean president Lee Myung-bak shortly after his election in 2008, he asked us to help come up with a 60-year view of his country’s future . . .
Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business
by
Rana Foroohar
Published 16 May 2016
Lazonick, Mazzucato, and Tulum, “Apple’s Changing Business Model.” 8. Data compiled by Mustafa Erdem Sakinç of the Academic-Industry Research Network; author interview with William Lazonick for this book. 9. Author interview with Stiglitz for this book. 10. Hillary Clinton, “Moving Beyond Quarterly Capitalism,” lecture, New York University, July 24, 2015 (also published online on Medium.com). 11. Andrew Smithers, The Road to Recovery: How and Why Economic Policy Must Change (Chichester, England: Wiley, 2013). 12. Michael Spence and Sandile Hlatshwayo, “The Evolving Structure of the American Economy and the Employment Challenge,” Working Paper, Council on Foreign Relations, March 2011, 13. 13.
The Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, the Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite
by
Duff McDonald
Published 24 Apr 2017
It is that lack of a dialogue, he thinks, that has gotten the nation into the environmental fix that it is in. “Businesspeople respond to incentives,” he says. “They don’t break new paths. Why have we gotten nowhere on climate change in this country? Because corporations have no incentive to change. To speak to their heart is bullshit. Quarterly capitalism is the ruling reality. If you’re going to change business, you are not going to do it by jawboning. The only thing that works is incentives. And the only people that can really engineer incentives are government. And look where we are with that: Currently, state, local, and the federal governments provide billions of dollars of incentives to the hydrocarbon industries that will, in the end, destroy the world.