Financialization of the Strategies of Western Listed Groups and Productive Investment: Between Rapprochements and Diversity

For the past three decades, the growth and financing of large listed companies have been subject to financialization, the extent of which depends on the economy. According to regulationist and post-Keynesian analyses, shareholders’ demands regarding profitability result in weakness of long-term fixed capital accumulation and the cyclicality of these strategies. Listed groups are not subject to the same constraints in different economies, despite their internationalization. To understand the impact of maximizing shareholder value, which underpins the financialization of strategies, we demonstrate that this constraint depends on the institutional context, particularly the structure of companies’ share capital and resulting mode of governance. In this study, we conducted a descriptive analysis of the behavior of large non-financial groups listed on the CAC All Tradable, Extended DAX, S&P 500, FTSE 350, FTSE Italia All-Share, and Extended IBEX indexes. We then calculated econometric estimates of these companies’ productive investments. We used the generalized method of moments. These estimates largely support the conclusions of the empirical analysis: liberal market economies are profoundly impacted by the financialization of strategies, the resulting instability, and the long-term depressive effects. Continental and Mediterranean European economies, while less affected, are nonetheless influenced to a significant degree in unique ways.