The Profit–Investment Nexus in an Era of Financialisation, Globalisation and Monopolisation: A Profit-Centred Perspective

During recent decades, the link between profits and domestic investment has weakened in the largest high-income economies. In this article, we explore this attenuation of the profit–investment nexus through a profit-centred perspective. Focusing on the impact of the origins and uses of profits, we study the investment behaviour of non-financial corporations in relation to their profits at the macro level since 1970, a period marked by financialisation, globalisation and, more recently, monopolisation. We contrast and discuss four competing hypothese—the revenge of the rentiers, the financial turn of accumulation, globalisation and monopolisation—and related stylised facts for France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.