The Risk-Reward Nexus

A DISCUSSION PAPER
The Risk-Reward
Nexus
Innovation, Finance and Inclusive Growth
policy network paper
William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato
Policy Network
Third floor
11 Tufton Street
London SW1P 3QB
United Kingdom
t: +44 (0)20 7340 2200
f: +44 (0)20 7340 2211
e: [email protected]
www.policy-network.net
We present a new framework, called the Risk-Reward Nexus, to study the relationship between
innovation and inequality. We ask: What types of economic actors (workers, taxpayers, shareholders)
make contributions of effort and money to the innovation process for the sake of future, inherently
uncertain, returns? Are these the same types of economic actors who are able to appropriate returns
from the innovation process if and when they appear? That is, who takes the risks and who gets
the rewards? We argue that it is the collective, cumulative, and uncertain characteristics of the
innovation process that make this disconnect between risks and rewards possible. When, across these
policy network paper
Abstract
different types of actors, the distribution of financial rewards from the innovation process reflects
the distribution of contributions to the innovation process, innovation tends to reduce inequality.
When, however, some actors are able to reap shares of financial rewards from the innovation process
that are disproportionate to their contributions to that process, innovation increases inequality. The
latter outcome occurs when certain actors are able to position themselves at the point where the
innovative enterprise generates financial returns; that is, close to the final product market or, in some
cases, close to a financial market such as the stock market. These favored actors then propound
ideological arguments, typically with intellectual roots in the efficiency propositions of neoclassical
economics, that justify the disproportionate shares of the gains from innovation that they have been
able to appropriate. These ideological arguments invariably favor shareholder contributions to the
innovation process over both worker contributions and taxpayer contributions. Ultimately, precisely
because innovation is a collective and cumulative process, the imbalance in the Risk-Reward Nexus
not only results in greater inequality but also undermines the innovation process itself. In this paper
we 1) develop the Risk-Reward Nexus framework on the basis of a theory of innovative enterprise that
focuses on the collective, cumulative, and uncertain character of the innovation process, 2) critique
the leading economic ideologies that, by distorting the relationship between risks and rewards,
have justified growing inequality over the past three decades or so, and 3) apply the analysis to the
trajectories of both innovation and inequality in the US economy since the 1970s. We conclude by
sketching out key policy implications of the Risk-Reward Nexus approach.
About the authors
William Lazonick ([email protected]) is Professor and Director of the UMass Center
for Industrial Competitiveness, and President, The Academic-Industry Research Network (www.
theAIRnet.org).
Mariana Mazzucato ([email protected]) is RM Phillips Professor in Science and Technology
Policy at the University of Sussex (SPRU).
The research leading to this paper was funded by the European Community’s Seventh Framework
Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities, grant agreement
n° 217466 (www.finnov-fp7.eu). Both authors are also grateful for support by the Institute for New
Economic Thinking (INET), and the Ford Foundation’s Reforming Global Finance initiative.
| The Risk-Reward Nexus | William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
lorerContents
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Executive summary 1
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1. Introduction 3
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The
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4. Financial actors and value extraction 11
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4.1 Value extraction through high-tech startups 12
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4.2 Value extraction through established companies 17
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4.3 Why do corporations repurchase stock? 17
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3 | |The
It’sRisk-Reward
also culture, Nexus
stupid!| |William
Xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxx
| MarMazzucato
2011
Lazonick
& Mariana
| November 2012
www.policy-network.net
Executive summary
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innovation tends to reduce inequality and increase growth. However, when certain actors
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financial market – the incentive is for value extraction at the expense of value creation.
The issue, however, does not lie in the individuals per se but rather in a set of institutions which do not accurately regulate the relationship between risks and rewards.
1| | It’s
Thealso
Risk-Reward
Nexus || Xxxxxxxxx
William Lazonick
& Mariana
Mazzucato | November 2012
4
culture, stupid!
xxxxxxxxx
| Mar 2011
www.policy-network.net
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better reflect fundamental indicators such as productivity, as well as controlling for the longterm growth potential of some of the most expensive and uncertain investments like R&D.
•
RETURNS TO THE STATE: Given the State’s important role in investing in the early development of
new technologies as well as in physical infrastructure and an educated labour force, companies
that have used these resources for successful innovation should contribute more returns to the
State, beyond ordinary tax payments at the normal rates. These funds could then be used by the
State to renew its investments in the ‘knowledge economy’, increasing innovation opportunities
for those companies.
2| | It’s
Thealso
Risk-Reward
Nexus| |Xxxxxxxxx
William Lazonick
& Mariana
Mazzucato | November 2012
5
culture, stupid!
xxxxxxxxx
| Mar 2011
www.policy-network.net
Inequality has hit the front pages, not only because it has been increasing, but also because of a
seemingly inexorable concentration of income at the top of the distribution chain through boom and
bust (OECD, 2008). And it is the concentration of income among the top 1 percent, or even the top 0.1
percent, that has become increasingly central to the growth of income inequality. This has put pressure
on national and transnational policies, such as those of the European Commission, to focus not only
on ‘smart’ growth, but growth that is also ‘inclusive’ and ‘sustainable’ — recognising that not all have
benefited from the knowledge economy (EC 2020, OECD 2012). However, the battle against increasing
inequality has had little success, as witnessed in the failed attempt to curb bank bonuses after the
2008-2009 financial crisis.
policy network paper
1. Introduction
A prime reason for this failure is a lack of understanding about how income inequality is connected to
processes of wealth creation. Indeed, one of the decades in which growth was the‘smartest’ (innovation
led) — the 1990s — was a decade in which inequality continued to rise. To put it another way, value
was created (in the form of new technologies - like the internet - and sectors like nanotechnology),
but then extracted and distributed to a small percentage of those who contributed to the process of
value creation. And while different approaches have provided interesting insights into the dynamics of
inequality, linking it to the welfare state (Wilkinson 2005), globalisation (Mazur 2000), de-unionisation
(Freeman 1992), and the changing skill base (Acemoglu 2002; Brynjolfsson 2011), little attention has
been paid to the tension between how value is created and how value is extracted in modern-day
capitalism.
In this paper, we argue that to understand income inequality it is critical to focus on its link to wealth
creation, and thus with innovation — a key characteristic of capitalism. Innovation, defined in economic
terms as the generation of higher quality products at lower unit costs, underpins real per capita income
growth, and therefore creates the possibility for higher standards of living to be shared among the
population. But investment in innovation is inherently uncertain; if we knew how to innovate when
investments in innovation are made, it would not be innovation.
In the first instance – that is before the State seeks to influence the level of inequality through income
transfers – one might expect that those economic actors who take the risks of investing in the innovation
process would be the ones to reap the rewards when the innovation process succeeds and suffer the
losses when it fails. However, by rooting our analysis of the risk-reward nexus in a theory of innovative
enterprise we show how in modern capitalist economies there has been an increasing separation
between those economic actors who take the risks of investing in innovation and those who reap the
rewards from innovation. Specifically, we argue that while risk-taking has become more collective —
leading to much discussion about open innovation and innovation ecosystems — the reward system
has become dominated by individuals who, inserting themselves strategically between the business
organisation and the product market or a financial market, and especially the stock market, lay claim to
a disproportionate share of the rewards of the innovation process.
A major barrier to the analysis of the relationship between innovation and inequality is the division
of labour among economists, between those who study each of these two phenomena, and their
mutual neglect of the role of financial institutions in linking the two. While the relationship between
the production of output and the distribution of income was a concern of nineteenth-century
classical economists such as David Ricardo and Karl Marx, research is now conducted on the basis of a
largely segmented division of labour in which labour economists work on inequality, and industrial
economists on technology – with both of these groups typically ignoring the role of finance in the
economy.
3 | The Risk-Reward Nexus | William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato | November 2012
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policy network paper
Since both innovation and income distribution depend fundamentally on investment strategies and
organisational structures of business enterprises, we need a theory of innovative enterprise that can
explain both the creation of value and its distribution among participants in the firm. A theory of
innovative enterprise must integrate an understanding of the interaction of strategy, organisation, and
finance in the generation of higher quality, lower cost products than had previously been available
(Lazonick 1991 and 2010; O’Sullivan 2000). We need a theory of innovative enterprise to explain how
over time the economic system augments its value-creating capability and the potential for higher
standards of living. If we do not have a theory of value creation, how can we differentiate value that
is created and value that is simply extracted (what some call “rent”)? That is precisely what the RiskReward Nexus (RRN) approach aims to analyse.
In conceptualising RRN, we emphasise the collective, cumulative, and uncertain character of the
innovation process. Innovation tends to be collective because the development and utilisation of
productive resources is an organisational process that involves the integration of the skills and efforts
of people with different hierarchical responsibilities and functional specialties. Innovation tends to
be cumulative because what the innovative organisation learned yesterday becomes the foundation
for what it can learn today. Innovation, however, is also uncertain because when investments in the
collective and cumulative innovation process are being made, there is no guarantee that the enterprise
will be able to generate a higher quality, lower cost product.
Yet, notwithstanding this uncertainty, people contribute effort (labour) and money (capital) to the
innovation process without a guaranteed return. That is, in the face of uncertainty, they make their
own personal calculations about the ‘rewards’ that may result from participation in the innovation
process which induce them to take ‘risks’. It is precisely because the outcomes of the innovation process
are uncertain that an ideology of who takes the risks can, and we argue in fact does, influence who
appropriates the rewards. By embedding our analysis in the collective, cumulative, and uncertain
characteristics of the innovation process, we can ask who
contributes labour and capital to the process and who reaps the
The increasingly financialised economy
financial rewards from it. Then we assess the equity of this riskhas created incentives for companies to
reward nexus, and ask whether it supports or undermines the
not invest themselves in human capital
innovation process. The RRN framework starts with the analysis
and innovation
of the innovation process as it occurs at the level of the product
and builds up to the level of the firm, industry, nation, and region
(e.g., the EU).
Our explanation is based on how some actors position themselves along the process of innovation
to extract more value than they create, while others get out much less than they put in. The power to
engage in such excessive value extraction does not occur through “exchange” relationships in which
the contributions of some economic actors are “undervalued” by the market. Rather it occurs when
certain economic actors gain control over the allocation of substantial business organisations that
generate value, and then use product or financial markets on which the enterprise does business to
extract value for themselves.
Indeed, while the recent emphasis on “pre-distribution” focuses on the need to prevent unequal market
outcomes which create a “winner takes all” dynamic that redistribution policies must then fix (Hacker
and Pierson 2010), we argue that understanding the mechanisms behind “winner takes all” requires
distinguishing between the source of the theft and its consequences (e.g., weaker labour unions,
low investment in skills). While we recognise that greater investments must be made in education
and re-skilling the workforce (policies arising from the “pre-distribution” debate), we argue that the
increasingly financialised economy has created incentives for companies to not invest themselves
in human capital and innovation, while increasingly depending on those investments to come from
4 | The Risk-Reward Nexus | William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato | November 2012
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policy network paper
elsewhere—mainly the public sector but also from niche “small” firms. State investments and subsidies
that are supposed to support and encourage innovation often only serve to permit companies to get
off the hook of making these risky investments themselves even as their executives deliberately make
no mention of State support. Indeed they invoke “free market” ideology to claim that, having taken all
the risks, “private enterprise” needs to reap all the rewards.
Our analysis focuses on the concrete ways that financial interests have been able to position themselves
along the investment and innovation curve, reaping excessive portions of the integral under the curve
rather than just their marginal contribution. And, as we will argue below, to understand this process,
it is fundamental not to confuse value that is created in organisations with value that is extracted
through “markets”.
In Section 2, we lay out the conceptual foundations for understanding how innovation may be related
to inequality by focusing on its core characteristics - the collective, cumulative, and uncertain character
of the innovation process. In Section 3, we then sketch out the RRN framework for analyzing the
innovation-inequality dynamic. In Section 4, we use this framework to provide an historical overview
of how over the past few decades in the United States “financialized” modes of resource allocation
have become characteristic of both high-tech startups and established companies, increasing income
inequality while undermining the innovation process. In Section 5 we compare the RRN framework to
the Skill-Biased Technical Change (SBTC) framework for understanding the relationship between, and
the policy implications of, “technological change” and inequality.
2. The uncertain, collective, and cumulative character of the
innovation process
A theory of the innovative enterprise must begin with the fundamental fact that innovation is
inherently uncertain. One cannot calculate a probabilistic stream of financial returns at the time when
investments of effort and money in the innovation process are made (Mazzucato and Tancioni 2012).
Indeed, since innovation is a learning process that unfolds over time, one cannot even know at any
point during the process the total costs of the investments that
will be required to achieve financial returns. Yet in the face of
Financial interests have been able
uncertainty, investments are made. Investments that can result in
to position themselves along the
innovation require the strategic allocation of productive resources
investment and innovation curve,
to particular processes to transform particular productive inputs
reaping excessive portions of the
into higher-quality, lower-cost products than those goods or
services that were previously available. Investment in innovation
integral under the curve rather than
is a direct investment that involves, first and foremost, a strategic
just their marginal contribution
confrontation with technological, market, and competitive
uncertainty (Lazonick 2010).
Who, then, confronts uncertainty by investing in innovation? In his oft-cited, and in certain respects
seminal, discussion of uncertainty, Frank Knight (1921) assumes that an individual whom he calls the
“entrepreneur”, and whom he distinguishes from a manager, confronts uncertainty by investing in the
production of a good of service. Knight views “entrepreneurial profits” as the reward to entrepreneurial
judgment and entrepreneurial luck, both of which relate to the difference between the market prices
that the entrepreneur pays for inputs and the market prices that he receives for outputs. It then becomes
possible for economists to argue that entrepreneurial profits are the result of “imperfect competition”.
With “perfect knowledge”, business judgment becomes irrelevant.
5 | The Risk-Reward Nexus | William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato | November 2012
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policy network paper
In the introduction to a reprint of Knight’s Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, George Stigler (1971), one of
Knight’s successors at the ultra-neoclassical University of Chicago, argued that Knightian uncertainty
was just a matter of “luck” (see Lazonick 1991, pp. 175-176). Going even further in eliminating Knightian
uncertainty from economic analysis, endogenous growth theory assumes that R&D can be modeled as
a lottery, in which one can calculate the probability of “getting lucky” (Romer 1990).
But even when, as in Knight’s original argument, it is admitted that business judgment is a factor in
leading an entrepreneur to confront uncertainty in the business world, it is assumed that the risk
of investing in a business enterprise remains in the hands of one particular type of individual – the
“entrepreneur” – while it is market processes, not business organisations, that determine whether
these investment yield financial returns.
By ignoring the collective and cumulative – or “organisational” – character of the innovation process,
Knight’s notion of entrepreneurial profits ultimately prepared the way for the Chicago School application
of agency theory to corporate resource allocation in which the shareholder is substituted for the
entrepreneur as the only economic actor in the corporation who
makes a contribution without a guaranteed market-determined
It becomes evident that it is not only,
return, and is hence the only bearer of risk (Jensen and Meckling
or even primarily, entrepreneurs or
1976; Jensen 1986). It then follows (as we discuss below) that,
of all participants in the corporation, it is only shareholders who
shareholders who bear risk. For high
have a claim to the “residual” (i.e., profits) if and when it occurs.
fixed cost investments in physical
For the sake of maximizing the residual, according to this highly
infrastructures and knowledge bases
influential view of the economic world, corporations should
that have the character of public
be run to “maximize shareholder value” because, in a market
goods it is generally the government
economy, it is only shareholders who take risk (for critiques, see
Lazonick and O’Sullivan 2000; O’Sullivan 2000).
Once we recognise the collective character of the innovation process, it becomes evident that it is not
only, or even primarily, entrepreneurs or shareholders who bear risk. For high fixed cost investments in
physical infrastructures and knowledge bases that have the character of public goods it is generally the
government (representing the collectivity of taxpayers) that must engage in this strategic confrontation
with uncertainty (Mazzucato 2011). In effect, the government assumes part of the risk that households
and businesses would not be willing to bear if they had to invest in the innovation process on their
own.
Moreover, within business enterprises, workers, and not just financiers, bear risk when they exert
effort now with a view to sharing in future gains from innovation if and when these gains materialise.
The exertion of this effort on the part of individual workers is critical to the process of organisational
learning that is the essence of the innovation process. This learning generally requires the organisational
integration of a complex hierarchical and functional division of labour within the firm and often across
vertically or horizontally related firms. Besides being uncertain, the innovation process is therefore
collective, and it is the collectivity of taxpayers, workers, and financiers who to different degrees bear
the risk of innovative enterprise.
The “national innovation system” approach has highlighted the roles in the innovation process of
different actors (financial institutions including banks and venture capital, government agencies,
universities, shop floor workers, engineers, users) and the important relationships among them
(Freeman 1995). As a collective process, innovation involves many different actors operating in
many different parts of the economy. Academic researchers often interact with industry experts in
the knowledge-generation process. Within industry there are research consortia that may include
companies that are otherwise in competition with one another. There are also user-producer
interactions in product development within the value chain. In these interactions, we would argue that
it is generally organisational relations, not market relations, that mediate the risk-reward nexus.
6 | The Risk-Reward Nexus | William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato | November 2012
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policy network paper
More generally, workers with a wide variety of functional specialties and hierarchical responsibilities
contribute time and effort to the innovation process with the expectation of sharing in the gains from
innovation if and when the firm is successful (Lazonick 1990 and 1998). To be sure, firms have to pay
workers wages today even for work that may only pay off tomorrow. But, as is generally recognised
by business executives who declare that “our most important assets are our human assets”, the key to
successful innovation is the extra time and effort that employees expend interacting with others to
confront and solve problems in transforming technologies and accessing markets, above and beyond
the strict requirements of their jobs. Anyone who has spent time in a workplace knows the difference
between workers who just punch the clock to collect their pay from day to day and workers who use
their paid employment as platforms for the expenditure of creative and collective effort as part of a
process of building their careers.
We posit that the productivity differences between the two types of workers can be enormous,
and that it will only be firms within which the latter culture predominates that will have a chance of
innovative success. Yet, in a world where it has become commonplace to terminate the employment of
experienced workers, how can workers who risk their time and effort for the sake of innovation ensure
that they will reap the rewards from innovation if and when they occur?
The State is a leading actor in the collective innovation process. While many economists have recognised
this role of the State for countries in their development stage (Chang, 2002), few have focused on the
State as a leading actor even in the most developed regions of the world, such as Silicon Valley. Block
and Keller (2010) have documented how government investments have been the backbone of the
most successful innovations of the past few decades, from the Internet to nanotech. Mazzucato (2011)
argues that it is especially in those technological areas with high capital intensity, and high market
and technological risk that the State has played an active ‘entrepreneurial’ role, and Lazonick (2011)
argues that in sectors that require high fixed-cost investments in physical infrastructures and human
capabilities, the innovative enterprise requires the ‘developmental state’.
Neoclassical economists construe this state involvement as
fixing “market failures”. From the perspective of the theory
of innovative enterprise, however, a more apt description
of government’s role is “opportunity creation”. Mazzucato
(2011) has argued that the State’s willingness to dare to
invest in the most high-risk uncertain phase of a new sector’s
development can be understood in terms of making and
shaping markets, not just fixing them.
while Keynes emphasised the need
for the State to inject demand into the
downside of the business cycle, the
reality is that without the State even in
periods of growth the capitalist machine
will not take off
This particular role of the State has been ignored in the debate about “picking winners” which assumes
that government agencies and business enterprises are engaged in the same types of investment
activities, but with the latter better at it because it is driven by the profit motive.
The failure to recognise the State’s risk-taking role, and the “bumpy” landscape on which it invests,
makes it impossible to measure its success (Mazzucato, 2012a). Nanotech would not have come about
without the visionary strategy of civil servants in the US National Science Foundation and National
Nanotechnology Initiative (the type of “crazy-foolish” behavior that the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs has
said is essential for innovation). It is plainly wrong to assume that the willingness to invest was there in
the business sector, and all government had to do was to create the right “framework conditions”. The
State led, putting its capital at risk, at a time when the business sector was not willing to engage. Thus,
while Keynes emphasised the need for the State to inject demand into the downside of the business
cycle, the reality is that without the State even in periods of growth the capitalist machine will not take
off.
7 | The Risk-Reward Nexus | William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato | November 2012
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Besides being collective, the innovation process is also cumulative. What one learns about how
to transform technology and access markets today provides the foundation for what the different
(collective) actors learn about transforming technology and accessing markets tomorrow. At the
firm level, innovation is one of the variables that (unlike growth) exhibits the most “persistence” as
successful innovators today are often the successful innovators of tomorrow (Demirel and Mazzucato
2012; Geroski et al. 1997).
policy network paper
The State also subsidises the investments that enable individual employees and business enterprises to
participate in the innovation process. In effect, taxpayers fund these inputs into the innovation process
as part of a societal effort to augment the future wealth of the nation. There is an expectation on the
part of taxpayers that if and when innovation is successful, a share in the gains will flow back to society
through taxation, job creation, and generally higher standards of living.
The cumulative character of the innovation process creates a need for committed finance – or what is
often called “patient capital” – to sustain the innovation process from the time at which investments in
innovation are made until the time at which those investments can generate returns. This cumulative
character makes the innovation process highly dependent on access to financial resources that will
sustain the innovation process from the time at which investments are made until it can generate
financial returns.
Cumulativity enhances the power of those who control sources of finance needed to sustain the
process, and, in ways that we describe below, positions them to reap rewards of innovation for
themselves for which taxpayers and workers took some of the core risks. Taxpayers and workers often
make investments in the innovation process years before and in different locations from the times at
and places in which the returns from those investments are realised.
Indeed they may have made these investments with the expectations that if and when those
investments would be successful, they would share in the returns. In the event, however, their ability
to share in the gains of innovation may be undermined by powerful actors who are able to change
the “rules of the game”. The State may be deprived of tax revenues that would represent returns on
its investments in innovation by changes in tax regimes (for example the “Bush tax cuts” in the United
States). Workers who had the expectation of reaping returns through a career with a company may be
laid off by profitable companies, perhaps with their jobs offshored to low wage areas of the world. What
taxpayers and workers lose, financial actors (including top executives) often gain (Lazonick 2012a).
3. The Risk-Reward Nexus
By focusing on the collective, cumulative, and uncertain character of the innovation process, the RiskReward Nexus (RRN) framework asks who contributes their labour and capital to the innovation process
and who reaps the financial rewards from it. Then we assess the equity of this risk-reward nexus, and
ask whether this nexus supports or undermines the innovation process.
The collective character of the innovation process makes it difficult to measure the contributions
of different actors to it since their contributions are intertwined. The cumulative character of the
innovation process creates a time-lag between the bearing of risk and the generation of returns that
can enable some economic actors to “position” themselves strategically in order to extract more value
from the returns to the innovation process than the “value-added” that their contributions of labour
and capital create. The uncertain character of the innovation process makes it difficult to posit a tight
8 | The Risk-Reward Nexus | William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato | November 2012
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policy network paper
connection between the bearing of risk and the generation of returns.
For example, proponents of agency theory, which is a branch of neoclassical financial economics,
assume common shareholders are the only contributors to the economy who do not have a guaranteed
return (Jensen 1986). It is indeed this assumption that underpins the justification, in academia and
the media, for shareholders (and those actors who have the most shares) getting so rich in periods
of innovation-led growth. The argument assumes that shareholders are the “residual claimants” to
whom net income belongs after all other economic actors – workers, suppliers, distributors, creditors
– are paid their “guaranteed” returns via market-determined prices. While, according to this theory,
all the gains belong to shareholders, by the same token, as the only risk-takers in the economy, they
have to bear all the losses as well. Hence the need, so the argument goes, for business corporations to
“maximize shareholder value” to encourage risk-taking and the possibility of superior performance of
the economy as a whole (Lazonick 2007 and Lazonick 2012b).
The problem is that shareholder-value theory lacks a theory
of innovative enterprise that can explain why and under what
conditions, and with whose participation, the taking of risk
results in innovation, i.e., higher quality, lower cost products.
This perspective fails to comprehend the implications of the
collective and cumulative character of the innovation process
for the distribution of risk among economic actors and the
distribution of rewards required to incentivise this risk-taking.
In short, the ideology of maximising shareholder value (MSV)
fails to comprehend the risk-reward nexus in the innovation
process.
By diminishing the incentives and
even the abilities of certain economic
actors to contribute to the innovation
process, inequality that derives from
misappropriation in the risk-reward
nexus can undermine the innovation
process itself
Indeed, it can be argued that public shareholders generally do not risk their capital by investing in
the innovation process. Firstly, insofar as public shareholders simply buy and sell shares on the stock
market, they invest in outstanding shares that have already been capitalised. They do not invest in the
innovation process. Secondly, they are generally willing to hold shares because of the ease with which
they can liquidate these portfolio investments, and as a result bear little if any risk of success or failure
of an innovative investment strategy. It is only those shareholders who actually commit their capital
to the innovation process until, through the generation of higher quality products at lower unit costs it
yields returns, who risk their capital on that success or failure of the innovation process.
In contrast, it can be argued that taxpayers and workers often invest their capital and labour in the
innovation process without a guaranteed return. When the State makes early high-risk investments
that enable the business sector to enter a new industry, the States does not have a guaranteed return
on that investment. When workers provide time and effort to the innovation process beyond that
required to reap their current pay, they generally lack a guaranteed return on that investment. From
this perspective, the agency-theory argument that shareholders are the only economic actors who
invest in the economy without a guaranteed return may serve as an ideology for those who claim to be
representing the interests of public shareholders to appropriate returns that, on the basis of risk-taking,
should be distributed to taxpayers and workers.
In a world dominated by MSV ideology, we contend that a major source of inequality is the ability of
economic actors to appropriate returns from the innovation process that are not warranted by their
investments of capital and/or labour in it. Indeed, we argue that by diminishing the incentives and
even the abilities of certain economic actors (taxpayers and workers) to contribute to the innovation
process, inequality that derives from misappropriation in the risk-reward nexus can undermine the
innovation process itself.
9 | The Risk-Reward Nexus | William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato | November 2012
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policy network paper
The collective character of the innovation process provides a foundation for inclusive growth; the
very participation of large numbers of people in the innovation process means that inherent in the
innovation process is a rationale for the widespread and equitable distribution of the gains to innovation.
These gains from innovation can either be reinvested in a new round of innovation or, alternatively,
distributed to stakeholders as returns to labour or capital. Insofar as government agencies have used
public funds to invest in innovation, the State has a claim to a share of the returns to innovation if and
when they occur. As we discuss in the conclusion of this paper, the exercising of these claims can take
the form of special levies on those business enterprises that make the most use of, or gain the most
from, government investments in innovation.
The State can allocate these gains to support innovation through infrastructural investments or
through subsidies to businesses and households designed to encourage innovation. Alternatively the
State can distribute the gains to innovation to the citizenry
(whose tax payments funded the government investments
Particularly in the United States stock
in innovation) in the forms of tax cuts, tax credits, or
repurchases have functioned as a
government-provided services. An understanding of the
mode of value extraction that generally
risk-rewards nexus in the innovation process is critical to the
undermines investment in innovation
formulation of these government policies.
The cumulative character of the innovation process creates a role for finance to sustain the innovation
process from the point in time at which investments are made until the point in time at which those
investments generate financial returns. While “financial commitment” is a condition of innovative
enterprise, the cumulative character of the innovation process can also provide an opportunity for
those who control access to finance to withdraw that access before returns can be generated, even
though from the perspective of those engaged in organisational learning the continuity of finance
could result in innovative success (Lazonick and Tulum 2011). Particularly in the United States stock
repurchases, justified by MSV ideology have functioned as a mode of value extraction that generally
undermines investment in innovation (Lazonick 2012a, 2012b).
It is customary for economists who are critical of distributional outcomes to call such value extractors
“rent-seekers”. But the use of the term “rent” implies that the gains that these actors appropriate derive
from gaining control over inherently scarce resources. The point of the innovation process, however, is
to overcome scarcity by generating higher quality, lower cost products than were previously available;
that is, by creating new sources of value. From this perspective, so-called rent-seekers are engaged in
value extraction. They insert themselves strategically in exercising control over the returns from the
innovation process, extracting a share of returns from the expanding economic pie that is in excess
of their contribution to the process that generated that expanding pie. In doing so, they – i.e., top
executives, venture capitalists, Wall Street bankers, hedge fund managers – make the claim, explicitly
or implicitly, that they are the risk-takers who were responsible for making the contributions to the
innovation process that justify their high returns.
When, driven by innovation, the economic pie is growing, workers may share in the gains through
higher wages and better promotion opportunities while the State may receive higher corporate and
capital-gain tax revenues from a booming economy. Even then there may be questions about whether
the returns to workers and taxpayers are high enough to reward them for their prior investment in the
innovation process. But in the subsequent economic decline, in part induced, we would argue, by the
success of the value-extractors in concentrating returns in their own hands, workers and taxpayers
typically lose out permanently even as the value-extractors use their control over corporate resource
allocation to continue to look for ways to consolidate their gains.
For example, in the Internet boom of the late 1990s, when, through stock-based remuneration, top
corporate executives and high-tech venture capitalists were becoming extremely wealthy, tight labour
10 | The Risk-Reward Nexus | William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
policy network paper
markets resulted in rising real wages while the Clinton Administration ran budget surpluses in large
part because of capital gains taxes on stock-market transactions. It was on the basis of these budget
surpluses that in 2001 the incoming Bush Administration formulated the possibility of dramatic cuts in
tax rates on dividends and capital gains – all in the name of innovation (e.g. Ortmans, 2012). Then when
the boom turned to bust in the early 2000s, the US government found that it now had large deficits
while many workers whose remuneration had benefited from the boom now found themselves
without jobs. Meanwhile the value-extractors sought to restore their gains of the late 1990s through,
for example, implementing the Bush tax cuts, offshoring of jobs to low-wage areas of the world, and
massive stock repurchases (Lazonick 2009a). During the 2000s, we would argue further, the success of
these means of value-extraction ultimately undermined the innovation process itself.
Our RRN framework seeks to analyse the ways in which risks and rewards can be aligned among
contributors to the innovation process so that the sharing of the gains to innovative enterprise
is equitable (and hence forms a foundation for reducing inequality) while promoting the growth
of innovative enterprise. Given the need for business-government collabouration in funding the
cumulative innovation process, those in the collaboration who exercise strategic control over the
allocation of resources need to have a framework for assessing the ongoing risks of investments in
innovation, with key participants in the organisational learning process involved. A risk-reward nexus
understanding of innovation provides strategic decision-makers in business and government with a
more inclusive and less financialized approach to the relation between economic performance and
income inequality than the dominant MSV paradigm. This understanding of the risk-reward nexus in
the innovation process will enable the relevant stakeholders to make collaborative decisions to invest
in innovation in the first place and sustain the process until it can generate returns on an equitable
basis to the different types of economic actors who participate in the process.
4. Financial actors and value extraction
If, as we have argued, the collective character of the innovation process provides a foundation for an
equitable distribution of income, how is it that certain economic actors are able to extract for themselves
disproportionate amounts of the value that the innovation process creates? They accomplish this feat
by positioning themselves along the cumulative curve of innovation, and extracting at a given point
in time much more than that of which they have contributed. This value extraction is done through
various institutional mechanisms such as political lobbying for de-regulation, lower tax rates, and
special subsidies, inside control over speculative stock issues and other financial deals, stock-based
compensation, and legal manipulation of the stock market through stock buybacks.
The proponents/beneficiaries of these institutional mechanisms
extol the virtues of a “free market” economy. Yet it is organisations,
not markets, that create value in the economy. Historically, welldeveloped markets are the result, not the cause of economic
development that is driven by organisations in the forms of
supportive families, innovative enterprises, and developmental
states (Lazonick 2003, 2011). Well-developed markets in inputs
and outputs can enhance the ability of the possessors of capital
and labour to extract value. But markets do not create value.
Any economy requires both the creation (i.e., production) and
extraction (i.e., distribution) of value. For example, whenever a
worker gets paid a wage he or she extracts value.
11 | The Risk-Reward Nexus | William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato | November 2012
The source of inordinate income
inequality is not value extraction per
se, but rather the positioning of people
who have control over large amounts of
finance capital to make use of financial
markets or product markets to extract far
more capital than they create
www.policy-network.net
It has long been recognised that financial fortunes are generated suddenly, ostensibly through the
capitalization of future profit potential into the market price of an asset, rather than patiently through
the accumulation of re-invested capital income (e.g., Thurow 1975). Financial deregulation and the
spread of stock-related pay have enabled investors (especially of private equity) and top corporate
executives to secure ownership of assets just before major innovation-related gains are capitalised into
them. Capital gains tax reduction has served to augment those gains.
policy network paper
The source of inordinate income inequality is not value extraction per se, but rather the positioning
of people who have control over large amounts of finance capital to make use of financial markets or
product markets to extract far more capital than they create. Rather than income being distributed
equitably (which of course does not necessarily mean equally) according to the value that different
economic actors create, certain types of economic actors are able to make use of both the reality and
ideology of markets to extract disproportionate amounts of value for themselves.
When financial markets become more speculative, the moment of capitalisation has tended to move
forward in time, so that it can often occur before any marketable products have been unveiled or a
profitable business established. IPOs and acquisitions are commonly the moment of capitalisation,
especially as IPO stock tends to be deliberately underpriced to ensure that IPO insiders will be able
to flip their shares while outsiders try to gain from the speculative fervor. Sometimes the strategic
announcement of a technological breakthrough is enough to cause a jump in the stock price of
companies exposed to it, enabling those strategically positioned to cash in.
Let us give two important examples based on the US experience of how this excessive value-extraction
process works. One comes from the world of high-tech startups, and the other comes from the world
of established business corporations. In effect, we will be arguing that people like Mark Zuckerberg of
Facebook, one of the world’s richest people with the company’s IPO in May 2012, or John Chambers of
Cisco, who as CEO had total remuneration of $12.9 million in 2011 and $662 million from 1995 through
2011, have used financial markets to extract far more value than they create. In making this argument,
we are not criticising these individuals per se but rather a set of institutions that, while enabling, and
even extolling, the ability of these individuals to extract value, fails to recognise the relation between
risks and rewards that creates value.
4.1 Value extraction through high-tech startups
In October 1980 Genentech, founded in 1976 by venture capitalists and scientists, was the first dedicated
biopharmaceuticalceutical company to do an IPO. In December 1980 Apple Computer, Inc., a company
that had been founded in a garage just four years earlier, did the largest IPO since Ford Motor Company
(which had been founded over a half century before it was listed on the stock market) had gone public
in 1956. Since then in the United States venture-backed IPOs have become a distinguishing feature in
both the biopharmaceuticalceutical and information and communication technology (ICT) industries
(Kenney and Florida 2000; Lazonick 2009b, ch. 2; Lazonick and Tulum 2011).
An IPO capitalises value gains that have been generated over many years by many people – and
hands those gains to a tiny group who often were not the original innovators or risk-takers but who
nevertheless are currently positioned to appropriate much or all the profit. This type of value extraction
also happens with IPOs of companies that were previously mutually- or family-owned, as their “trapped
equity” is suddenly capitalised and paid out to the people who devised the flotation. That equity is the
summation of other people’s ingenuity and risk-taking, often captured by people who exhibited little
or even none.
In the ICT industry, high-tech startups have been at the centre of a technological revolution that is still
being played out in areas such as mobile communications, social networking, and cloud computing. In
12 | The Risk-Reward Nexus | William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
The huge gains that were already accruing to these economic actors in the IPO boom of the early 1980s
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a process
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inte
ways
we
outline below, set off a quest for higher levels of remuneration among CEOs of established companies.
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Oracle,
and
Cisco
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that
generated
huge
returns
to
venture
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capitalists,
founders,
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executives
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employ
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as
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success
stories,
whose
CEOs
deserve
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their
mega-wealth
because
they
took
great
personal
risks
in
pursuit
of
daring
visions
that
captured
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major new industries for the United States. In fact, a set of socially-devised institutions related to
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corporate governance, stock markets and income taxation have permitted this concentration of value
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extraction in a few hands.
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policy network | Thepolicy
Amsterdam
networkProcess
paper
biopharmaceuticalceuticals,
number
of high-techquatin
startups
as consed
Genentech
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at amconullutem
vel from
dolorthe
ad early
minim1980s
zzrit such
adigna
do(now
part
of
Roche),
Amgen,
Genzyme
(now
part
of
Sanofi),
and
Biogen
(now
Biogen
Idec)
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quisit nis
generated blockbuster drugs (defined as at least $1 billion in sales in any one year), although through
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2009 the number of blockbusters generated by the industry numbered only 30 (Lazonick and Tulum
accum zzril eugait lortie faccums andionsequis nibh exercincil utpatio od tat lutatisis aci essit augue
2011). Since the early 1980s in Silicon Valley, by far the most dynamic industrial district for high-tech
tat. Im ad magnit lumsandre dolore dipis nulput iriusci psustrud tie feugait lum diam vel utpat. Reestartups, tens of thousands of venture capitalists, founders, top executives, and early-stage employees
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have become multimillionaires.
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These high-tech startups would not have been able to come into existence if not for decades of
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investment by the US government in ICT and biotech. As the historian Stuart Leslie (1993, 2000) has
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temilitary-industry
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documented,
the inismod
foundation
for the
emergence
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Valley acipisi
was the
complex
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that became implanted in the region during and after World War II, and particularly in the Cold
War
endrem of
zzriusto
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context
the 1950s.
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etuer illandit
in first
utpat,
quis nos
nos doloreet,
core dolore
facidunt
do ex esto
dolor in volorSilicon
Valley’s
formal
venture
capital firm,
Draper,vulla
Gaither,
and velit
Anderson,
founded
1959,
was
headed
two former
generals
in thenos
US enim
Armed
Forces,
William
Draper, Jr.sequip
and Frederick
L.
eet utpat
loreby
commy
niam nibh
ercilissent
atie
do odiam
quisH.nulluptat,
ercilismod
Anderson,
and
the
former
head
of
the
Ford
Foundation,
H.
Rowan
Gaither,
whose
name
is
on
the
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secret
1957
submitted
President
Eisenhower
on how
the United
respond
to the
do esto
enisreport
atet, sumsan
ut to
laoreet
vel utpat.
Duissent
accumsan
veroStates
odolorshould
sim zzril
irit vullamSoviet
Union’s
launching
of
Sputnik
(Business
Week
1960).
The
high-tech
district
that
was
to
become
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known as Silicon Valley (a term that was coined in 1971) was either producing directly for the military
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or, increasingly from the last half of the 1960s, spinning off military technology for commercial uses
feugait veliquamet velit wisl ut ut pratue velessim nostrud ex etue consequisi.
(Lazonick 2009b, ch. 2). In this, Silicon Valley was imitating the previous development of the Route 128
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high-tech district in the Boston area, based on military technologies developed at nearby universities,
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especially the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Hsu and Kenney 2005)
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essim velendre
mincin that
henit,were
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nit iniat
dolor si. by tens of thousands of
Military
technologies
later commercialised
developed
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et auguero
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sismodi gniscidunt
scientists,
engineers,
and aute
othertionsendip
technical personnel
in research
labs of largerwiscili
ICT companies
including
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quis
accummodio
dolore
tat.
AT&T, General Electric, IBM, Sylvania, Xerox, Motorola, and Texas Instruments. Some employees left
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faccummy
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nulla commolessit,
ingofea
faci
to
found
startups, od
butea
the
ability tonullutat
attract capital
finance startups
required a quiscil
number
other
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te put
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eniamco
nsecte
institutional
that aci
were
in suscinci
place from
the late
1950s. In 1958 the US government’s Small
Business Administration (SBA), itself set up in 1953, launched the Small Business Investment Company
(SBIC) program to provide subsidies to the formation and growth of startups. Many firms in the nascent
venture-capital industry of the 1960s availed themselves of funds from SBIC (Rubel and Noone 1970).
Meanwhile, starting with what is known as the “Special Study” of securities markets submitted to the
US Congress in 1963, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) encouraged the National
Association of Security Dealers (a), a private non-profit organisation charged with regulating the
trading activities of its members, to make use of advances in computer technology to establish a
national electronic quotation system for Over-The-Counter (OTC) stocks. The result was the creation of
16
It’s also
culture, stupid!
xxxxxxxxx
| Mar 2011
13 || The
Risk-Reward
Nexus | Xxxxxxxxx
William Lazonick
& Mariana
Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
eet dolestis
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eugiam dit
wisim
velit ad
te commy
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feui tat wis
NASDAQ’s
liquidity
is particularly
high
because,
unusually
fornonsequam
an OTC exchange,
hastehundreds
of
market-makers, usually more than one per stock. They ensure instant purchase or sale close to the market
price,
and underwriting
IPOs.ad
Investors,
result, have
very little
liquidity risk.
Thevelis
risk isaliquis
transferred
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ullum
te dunt as
auta veliqui
psuscilisis
augueriureet
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exerto
market-makers
who
are
backed
by
investment
banks
which,
we
now
know,
are
underwritten
by
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government.
effect, through
NASDAQ,
the profits
innovation
have been privatised
its risks
pratie dip et In
alismolobore
doloborer
suscipit
vullaorofsectet,
si blamconullan
henisl ullaand
faccumsan
socialised
(Ellis
et
al,
1999).
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In 1972 Silicon Valley venture capitalists, most of whom
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feugait
lan erothe
consectem
After
riding
wavevullum
of State
came out of the microelectronics industry, began to
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lortissi etuero
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investments,
therefore,
venture capital
coalesce into a defined industry when a number of them,
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nulla
consed
dolore
essi
tate
te decrease the
proceeded to aggressively
including Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia, co-located at 3000
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sit, commodit,
sizenulputat,
of the purse
that vendit
funded it
Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, near Stanford University. Also
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at that location was the Western Association of Venture
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Capitalists
whichexineros
1973
formed
the
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policy network | Thepolicy
Amsterdam
networkProcess
paper
the
Association
of Securities
Dealers Quotation
or NASDAQ,
February
Unlike
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consed
dothe New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), which had stringent listing requirements in terms of capitalisation
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and a record of profitability, NASDAQ, like the OTC markets that it aggregated, afforded startups with
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low capitalisation and no profits the possibility of doing an IPO. With the creation of NASDAQ, there
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now existed a highly liquid national market in highly speculative corporate securities that provided
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their
investments.
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development
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speculative
stock market
attracted sequis
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capital into
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the
ICT industry.
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te 1970s
minci was
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National
Association
(NVCA),
a business
lobbyaugait
that inacipisi
the late
in thecorerat.
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American
Electronics
(AeA),
which also
emanated
from
Silicon Valley,
in
endrem zzriusto
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et lobore
tat vent
atrates
praessi.
convincing
the USeliquam,
Congressvenim
to lower
capital-gains
tax
from almost 40% in 1976 to as low as
20%
in
the
early
1980s.
After
riding
the
wave
of
State
investments,
therefore,
capital proceeded
Onullaore faccumm olorper ad modit esenisi ex euguerat. Ut lore
core velventure
ero essequam,
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to
aggressively
thenos
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of the
purse that
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illandit indecrease
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Poised
reap speculative
gainsatie
at low
via a quick
exit on cinismo
NASDAQ,
the venture
capitalists
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tat,tax
simrates
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needed
to
gain
access
to
large
amounts
of
capital.
By
the
early
1980s
workers’
pensions
provided
the
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defined-benefit pensions, most of which were managed by major corporate employers, had been
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unavailable to the venture-capital industry.
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The passage in 1974 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) had provided government
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acing
eum
adionsequis
ammanagers
iliquis duipcould
et ipisim
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guarantees
for workers’
pensions
and
ruled
that
pension-fund
be personally
liable
ilitnot
exercin
ex etueraese
hendio
ex erworkers’
sum zzril
esendre
dolorem quam,
quis nosto
ifdolorer
they did
followciduis
the “prudent
man” min
rule in
investing
money.
Pension-fund
managers
were,
essim
velendre
mincin
henit, in
sisis
nostrud minibh
elestis
nit iniat
dolor by
si. the NVCA and AeA as well
as
a result,
reluctant
to invest
venture-capital
funds.
Intense
lobbying
Lathe
facimanagers
euissi. It dolutem
aute tionsendip
auguero
eugiam dolendrerat
wiscili however,
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as
of big corporate
pensionetfunds
(for example,
General Electric),
helped to
am quis accummodio
dolore to
tat.issue a clarification of ERISA that stated that pension-fund managers
convince
the US government
could
putfacipsusto
as much as
of the
fund into
risky vulluptat
assets such
as venture-capital
funds, and
stillfaci
be
Gait eu
odfive
eapercent
faccummy
nullutat
acidunt
nulla
commolessit, quiscil
ing ea
deemed
to
acting
prudently.
As
a
result,
from
the
second
half
of
1979
vast
amounts
of
workers’
capital
tisis nim init am quipsum aci te dolor suscinci eniamco nsecte
poured into the venture capital industry.
While there are different ways in which a venture-capital firm can be organised, by the 1980s the limited
partnership became the dominant form. The limited partners are the pension funds or other outside
investors who entrust their money to the venture capitalists who, as the general partners, decide
how to invest the closed-end (usually ten-year) fund capital. The venture capitalists typically receive a
management fee equal to 2 percent of the entire fund plus 20 percent “carried interest” of all the fund’s
profits.
17
It’s also
culture, stupid!
xxxxxxxxx
| Mar 2011
14 || The
Risk-Reward
Nexus | Xxxxxxxxx
William Lazonick
& Mariana
Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
tumsan elent dolut aut vercing exeril in velis nibh eu faci blaorero dio diamcon sequis aliquam, vel
To be sure, venture capitalists and other private-equity holders take risks, although even then mostly
doloborper adit at iliquisim do enibh etue tetumsa ndipsustrud eugiametue magniamet ullaor
with other people’s (primarily workers’) money. But they have a vested interest in encouraging stock
market speculation in the companies that they bring to market either through an IPO or, as an alternative
eet dolestis
lumdeal.
eugiam
dit wisim of
velit
ad tetocommy
nonsequam
zzrilinsiders,
eu faci te
feui tat wis
mode
of exit,elenit
an M&A
The allocation
access
shares in
an IPO favours
including
the
Wall Street banks that underwrite the deals. By keeping the float small, under-pricing the stock issue,
x ea hyping
facilit volor
ipit, vel
ullum
adencourage
te dunt auta veliqui
psuscilisis
augueriureet
aliquispublic
exerand
the stock,
the
banks
post-IPO
run-up in
stock pricesullam,
as thevelis
investing
aestrud tet
feushares.
feum alit,
commy
nonsed
magnim
dolorper
ip etumsandre
magna
feugiamet
clamors
for aci
thebla
listed
Insiders
then
flip their
holdings
to make
huge short-term
gains.
As was
shown
in
a
2002
Fortune
article
entitled
“You
Bought.
They
Sold”,
when
the
stock
market
is
at
a
peak,
pratie dip et alismolobore doloborer suscipit vullaor sectet, si blamconullan henisl ulla faccumsan
insiders
tend
cash Im
in their
own
shares while
encouraging
outsiders
to buy zzriuscilla
(Gimein etcore
al. 2002).
ut
autpat.
Ut to
luptat.
ver sim
veraesed
te dolorer
sed diamet
vullandrem
vel esting
esto elisi.Ut iniamet autatue diat accum quat iurerci bla faccum zzrit adit landiam do od dolor senit
The
foundation
theeugait
emergence
of the UScommy
venture-capital
model
the rise
microelectronics
venibh
euis nosfor
adio
numsandrero
nim exerostis
eawas
feugait
lan of
erothe
consectem
vullum
industry in Silicon Valley from the late 1950s (Kenney and Florida 2000; Lazonick 2009b, ch. 2). Given
veniscipit alisi. Hendre volorperit ipsumsa ndreet lute tetuero diamet lortissi etuero odo od ming
the investments in microelectronics by the US government and established business corporations
exeriurem dui ex eugait wis ad duiscidunt ulluptat incing erillummy nulla consed dolore essi tate te
in the post-World War II decades as well as the characteristics of both microelectronics technology
feugait, veraessenit wisci tem ipis exeril dunt in velesto od eu feugait nulputat, sit, commodit, vendit
and markets, it was possible for an ICT company to generate a commercial product within a few years
ad tie etueros acil iril utet lutem velit nulla facidunt ad mod magnim in ex eu feu feugait laore facilla
after being founded, as indeed was the case for companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Apple, Electronic
aliquipis nullan ex eros aliquat. Duis nim exer ad magna feui tat lore vel ipsum iniamcorem zzril exer
Arts, and Cisco. With the founding of Genentech in 1976, however, the US venture-capital model was
sim
velit, qui
tembiopharmaceuticalceutical
inismod olenisis nonse volor
susciduipis
augait
acipisi
te minci
blaoreet,
extended
to the
industry
in which
it would
generally
take
at leastcorerat.
a decade
Na
feugue
tio
eummy
niam
quatum
zzrilla
ortiscillut
nulluptate
vullaor
eetumsa
ndiamcore
mincip
to generate a commercial product, with no certainty that in the end a viable drug would be developed.
endrem zzriusto eliquam, venim incil et lobore tat vent at praessi.
policy network | Thepolicy
Amsterdam
networkProcess
paper
The
majorityinit
of ent
venture-backed
startups fail, and
thevel
returns
capital
have consed
been quite
Wisi vast
bla faccum
prat. Ut at amconullutem
quatin
dolorto
adventure
minim zzrit
adigna
dovolatile
across
the
business
cycle
(Gompers
and
Lerner
2002).
Nevertheless,
many
venture
lorer alit veliquip et lum nostion henit luptatinisci blandit auguer augue dolorperos enimcapitalists
quisit nis
and founders of high-tech firms have emerged since the 1980s as members of the super-rich. The
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lowering of the tax rate on capital gains and dividends to 15 percent, i.e., the Bush tax cuts of 2003,
accum zzril eugait lortie faccums andionsequis nibh exercincil utpatio od tat lutatisis aci essit augue
made them even richer.
tat. Im ad magnit lumsandre dolore dipis nulput iriusci psustrud tie feugait lum diam vel utpat. Ree-
Onullaore
olorper
ad the
modit
ex euguerat.
Ut lore
coreseem
vel erotoessequam,
contoeuithe
el
As
Pisano faccumm
(2006) has
argued,
USesenisi
venture-capital
model
would
be ill-suited
etuer illandit in utpat, quis nos
nos doloreet,
dolore
facidunt
velit
do ex esto in
dolor
in volorbiopharmaceuticalceutical
industry.
Venture core
capital
looksvulla
to exit
from its
investments
at most
five
years.
Butlore
it typically
atercilissent
least twicenos
that
amount
ofodiam
time to
generate
a biopharmaceutical
eet
utpat
commy requires
niam nibh
enim
atie do
quis
nulluptat,
sequip ercilismod
drug
that,
having
gone
through
phase
1,
2,
and
3
clinical
trials,
the
US
Food
and
Drug
Administration
dipsum dolore dolesto dolortis atie tat, sim accumsan euis dolorer cinismo doloreet dio
consectem
may
deem
effective
and
safe
enough
to
market.
Yet,
as
Pisano
also
recognises,
there
are
hundreds
of
do esto enis atet, sumsan ut laoreet vel utpat. Duissent accumsan vero odolor sim zzril irit vullampublicly
listed
biopharmaceutical
firms
in
the
United
States
that
have
done
their
IPOs
and
then
remain
corem dit numsan volorper sed tis nonullamcon vel ulla feui endre modolorem dolorem vel enibh et
in business for years on end without a product. At best, these PLIPOS (product-less IPOs) generate
euissendre dolut ut loboreet lum velendiamet lore euguerc incinci duipis niscilit ipisisissi te ming eu
revenues from R&D contracts with established pharmaceutical companies that also typically take
feugait veliquamet velit wisl ut ut pratue velessim nostrud ex etue consequisi.
equity stakes in them. In addition PLIPOs have been able to raise huge amounts of finance through
Ut lut nibh erosto odiat, quipis nonsectet, velit ilis num enibh esed ex ea autem duismolenim nim
IPOs and secondary stock issues (Lazonick and Sakinç 2010).
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dolorer ilit exercin ciduis ex etueraese min hendio ex er sum zzril esendre dolorem quam, quis nosto
Indeed, it is NASDAQ, i.e., the speculative stock market, that has enabled this business model to survive.
essim
velendre
mincinhedge
henit, sisis
nostrud
minibh
elestis
iniat
Speculators,
including
funds,
are willing
to buy
andnitsell
ondolor
newssi.
about R&D contracts won or
La faci euissi.
dolutem
aute
tionsendip
etfail.
auguero
eugiam dolendrerat
wiscili
gniscidunt
cancelled
andItclinical
trials
that
succeed or
The speculators
do not expect
tosismodi
make their
money
am
quis
accummodio
dolore
tat.
because a biopharmaceutical firm has produced a successful drug, but rather through buying and
Gait eustock
facipsusto
od ea
faccummy
nullutat
acidunt
vulluptat
nulla commolessit,
quiscil ing ea faci
selling
(Lazonick
and
Tulum, 2011).
Given
that over
its 35-year
history, the biopharmaceutical
tisis nim init
quipsumsome
aci te dolor
suscinci eniamco
nsecte can always rationalise their demand
industry
hasam
generated
30 blockbusters,
speculators
for biopharmaceutical shares on the grounds that they are betting on the next blockbuster. In fact,
however, by buying and selling stock, they can make or lose money on these bets irrespective of
whether a successful drug is ever forthcoming. Given the massive amount of funds that have flowed
into the US biopharmaceutical industry and the relatively small number of successful drug discoveries,
the overall returns in terms of drug development have been small while financial interests, including
highly remunerated biopharmaceutical executives, have done very well for themselves.
The foundation for this speculative system of biopharmaceutical finance is US government spending
on the life sciences knowledge base. Since the founding of its first research institute in 1938 through
18
It’s also
culture, stupid!
xxxxxxxxx
| Mar 2011
15 || The
Risk-Reward
Nexus | Xxxxxxxxx
William Lazonick
& Mariana
Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
doloborper
at iliquisim
do enibh
tetumsa that
ndipsustrud
eugiametue
magniamet
ullaor
to
generate aadit
commercial
product,
withetue
no certainty
in the end
a viable drug
would be developed.
Yet for all this government spending and business funding that has flowed into the biopharmaceutical
industry
through
private
equitythe
(including
venture
IPOs,
secondary
stock
issues,
and
eetPisano
dolestis
elenit
lumargued,
eugiam
dit
wisim
velit
ad tecapital),
commy
nonsequam
zzril
eubefaci
te feui
tat
wis
As
(2006)
has
U.S.
venture-capital
model
would
seem
to
ill-suited
toR&D
the
contracts,
the
biopharmaceutical
industry
has
not
been
very
productive
(Demirel
and
Mazzucato,
biopharmaceuticalceutical industry. Venture capital looks to exit from its investments in at most2012;
five
Pisano
2006).
Most
ofrequires
theullum
blockbuster
biotech
that
huge returns
for velis
bothaliquis
big pharma
years.
But
itvolor
typically
atad
least
thatdrugs
amount
ofgenerated
time to
generate
a biopharmaceutical
drug
x ea facilit
ipit,
vel
te twice
dunt
aut
veliqui
psuscilisis
augueriureet
ullam,
exerand
biopharmaceutical
companies
reflect
control
over
patent
rights
to
the
“low-hanging
fruit” may
that
that,
having
gone
through
phase
1,
2,
and
3
clinical
trials,
the
U.S.
Food
and
Drug
Administration
aestrud tet aci bla feu feum alit, commy nonsed magnim dolorper ip etumsandre magna feugiamet
became
available
these
companies
in the
as a also
result
of decades
of NIH
funding. Meanwhile
deem
andtosafe
enough
to market.
Yet,1980s
asvullaor
Pisano
recognizes,
there
are
hundreds
of publicly
pratieeffective
dip et alismolobore
doloborer
suscipit
sectet,
si blamconullan
henisl
ulla faccumsan
our
research
has
shown
that,
in
PLIPOs,
economic
actors
who
have
invested
in
biopharmaceutical
listed
biopharmaceutical
firms
in
the
United
States
that
have
done
their
IPOs
andthen
remain
in
business
ut autpat. Ut luptat. Im ver sim veraesed te dolorer sed diamet vullandrem zzriuscilla core vel
esting
companies
have
been
able
to
reap
substantial
returns
for
themselves
even
in
the
absence
of
a
successful
for
years
on
end
without
a
product.
At
best,
these
PLIPOS
(product-less
IPOs)
generate
revenues
from
esto elisi.Ut iniamet autatue diat accum quat iurerci bla faccum zzrit adit landiam do od dolor senit
product
(Lazonick
and
Sakinç 2010;
Lazonick and Tulum
2011).that also typically take equity stakes in
R&D contracts
with
established
pharmaceutical
companies
venibh euis nos adio eugait numsandrero commy nim exerostis ea feugait lan ero consectem vullum
them. In addition PLIPOs have been able to raise huge amounts of finance through IPOs and secondary
veniscipit applies
alisi. Hendre
volorperit ipsumsa
lute tetuero
lortissi
etuero
odo od
The
to top
of thesendreet
companies
who notdiamet
only draw
healthy
salaries
butming
also
stocksame
issues (Lazonick
andexecutives
Sakinç 2010).
exeriurem
dui
ex
eugait
wis
ad
duiscidunt
ulluptat
incing
erillummy
nulla
consed
dolore
essi
tate
te
receive stock-based rewards that can bring them millions of dollars. Meanwhile US taxpayers keep
feugait, veraessenit
wiscithrough
tem ipis the
exeril
dunt
intax
velesto
od
euand
feugait
nulputat, drugs
sit, commodit,
vendit
funding
companies
NIH.
With
rates
low
few successful
that in
case
Indeed, itthese
is NASDAQ,
i.e., the speculative
stock
market,
that
has
enabled
this business model
toany
survive.
ad tie
etueros
acil
utet
lutem
velit
nulla
facidunt
adand
modsell
magnim
inare
ex
eu feu
feugait
laore
facilla
bear
prices
that
areiril
about
double
those
in
any
other
country,
taxpayers
seeing
little
in the
way
ofora
Speculators,
including
hedge
funds,
are
willing
to buy
on news
about
R&D
contracts
won
return.
aliquipis nullan
ex eros
aliquat.
nim or
exer
magna
feui tat do
lorenot
velexpect
ipsum iniamcorem
exer
cancelled
and clinical
trials
that Duis
succeed
fail.adThe
speculators
to make theirzzril
money
policy network | Thepolicy
Amsterdam
networkProcess
paper
2011,
the National
Institutes
Health
(now made
upand
of 27
centres
andLazonick
institutes)
has appropriated
industry
Siliconinit
Valley
fromof
the
1950s
(Kenney
Florida
2). Given
Wisi bla in
faccum
ent prat.
Ut
atlate
amconullutem
quatin
vel
dolor2000;
ad minim
zzrit2009b,
adignach.
consed
do$804
billion
in
2011
dollars
to
fund
this
knowledge
base.
More
than
half
of
these
funds
have
been
the investments in microelectronics by the U.S. government and established business corporations
in
lorer
alit
veliquip
et
lum
nostion
henit
luptatinisci
blandit
auguer
augue
dolorperos
enim
quisit
nis
appropriated
since
At an annual
of $31 billion for
2009 microelectronics
through 2012, thetechnology
appropriations
the post-World
War1998.
II decades
as well average
as the characteristics
of both
and
niam
ing erillum
sandion
hent ipit,
summod
sed
am three
do duisl
ip et
irilissequip
ea
are
about
their
level
thanto
inmodolor
the earlyeetuer
and tat
about
times
the
markets,
ittwice
was possible
forinanreal
ICTterms
company
generate
a1990s
commercial
product
within
atheir
fewlevel
yearsinafter
accum zzrilBetween
eugait lortie
andionsequis
nibh exercincil
utpatio
od tat lutatisis
aci
essitor
augue
mid-1980s.
1998faccums
and the
2003
thefor
NIH
budget
increased
by anMicrosoft,
average
of
$2.7 Electronic
billion,
14.7
being founded,
as indeed
was
case
companies
such as Intel,
Apple,
Arts,
tat. Im ad
lumsandre
dipisthe
nulput
iriusci
psustrud
tie feugait lum
diam
vel utpat.
Ree-a
percent
permagnit
year. Without
this dolore
spending,
United
States,
and probably
world,
would
not have
and Cisco.
With
the founding
of Genentech
in 1976,
however,
the U.S.the
venture-capital
model
was
tumsan
elent
dolut
aut
vercing
exeril
in
velis
nibh
eu
faci
blaorero
dio
diamcon
sequis
aliquam,
vel
biopharmaceutical
industry.
extended to the biopharmaceuticalceutical industry in which it would generally take at least a decade
sim velit,aqui
tem inismod olenisis
volor susciduipis
augait
acipisi
mincithrough
blaoreet,
corerat.
because
biopharmaceutical
firm nonse
has produced
a successful
drug,
but te
rather
buying
and
In
US
high-tech
startups,
gains
from
an
IPO
and
subsequent
stock
price
boosts
are
shared
with
Na feugue
eummy and
niamTulum,
quatum
zzrilla
ortiscillut
nulluptate
vullaor
eetumsa
ndiamcore mincip
selling
stocktio(Lazonick
2011).
Given
that over
its 35-year
history,
the biopharmaceutical
employees
broad-based
stock
optiontat
plans.
Prior
to
rise of
Silicon Valley
endrem zzriusto
eliquam,
venim30incil
et lobore
vent at
praessi.
industry
hasthrough
generated
some
blockbusters,
speculators
canthe
always
rationalize
their startups,
demand
employee
stock
options
were
largely
reserved
for
top
executives
to
enable
them
to
secure
some
of
for
biopharmaceutical
shares
on
the
grounds
that
they
are
betting
on
the
next
blockbuster.
Ineui
fact,
Onullaore faccumm olorper ad modit esenisi ex euguerat. Ut lore core vel ero essequam, con
el
their
remuneration
at the capital-gains
tax
rate,
which at 25
percent
in theon
1950s was
far lower than the
however,
by buying
stock,
they
can
losefacidunt
money
of
etuer illandit
in utpat,and
quisselling
nos nos
doloreet,
coremake
doloreorvulla
velitthese
do exbets
esto irrespective
dolor in volortop
marginal
personal-income
tax rate
of 91 percent.
Inthe
the massive
1960s and 1970s,of
however,
the US
Congress
whether
successful
ever
forthcoming.
fundssequip
that
have
flowed
eet utpatalore
commydrug
niamisnibh
ercilissent
nosGiven
enim atie
do odiamamount
quis nulluptat,
ercilismod
scaled
down
this
tax
privilege
of
top
executives
until
it
was
eliminated
completely
in
the
Tax
Reform
into
the U.S.
biopharmaceutical
relatively
small
number
of successful
dipsum
dolore
dolesto dolortisindustry
atie tat,and
simthe
accumsan
euis
dolorer
cinismo
doloreetdrug
dio discoveries,
consectem
Act
of 1976.returns
At theinsame
time
the capital-gains
tax
ratebeen
was,small
as already
mentioned,
raised to
almost
the
overall
terms
of
drug
development
have
while
financial
interests,
do esto enis atet, sumsan ut laoreet vel utpat. Duissent accumsan vero odolor sim zzril iritincluding
vullam40
percent.
Although,
as we have also seen,
the NVCA
AeA
highly
remunerated
biopharmaceutical
executives,
haveand
done
verylobbied
well forsuccessfully,
themselves.in the name of
corem dit numsan
volorper
sed tis tax
nonullamcon
vel ullathis
feui
endre was
modolorem
et
innovation,
to get the
capital-gains
rate back down,
change
virtually dolorem
irrelevantvel
forenibh
options
euissendre dolut
ut loboreet
lum velendiamet
lore
euguerc
incinci
duipis niscilit
ipisisissi
te ming
eu
of
exercised
from broad-based
because
these
options
almost
always taxed
at the
Theemployees
foundation
for this speculative
system plans
of biopharmaceutical
financeare
is U.S.
government
spending
feugait veliquamet
velit
ut utthe
pratuemarginal
velessimpersonal
nostrudincome
ex etuetax
consequisi.
personal-income
taxknowledge
rate.wisl
In 1980
rate still
stood at
percent.
By
on the life sciences
base. top
Since the founding
of its first research
institute
in 70
1938
through
Ut lut nibhthe
erosto
odiat,
quipis nonsectet,
velit
num enibh
esed
ex
duismolenim nim
1988-1990
Reagan
“supply-side”
revolution
hasilis
brought
down
asand
lowea
asautem
28 percent.
2011, the National
Institutes
of Health
(now made
up of 27it centers
institutes)
has appropriated
velenit
ut
nullummy
nibh
enisi
ea
cor
acing
eum
adionsequis
am
iliquis
duip
et
ipisim
quishave
adiam
vel
$804 billion in 2011 dollars to fund this knowledge base. More than half of these funds
been
Especially
PC boom
of the early
high-tech
startups
used broad-based
stock
options
dolorer ilitduring
exercin
ciduis
exan
etueraese
min 1980s,
hendio
exbillion
er sum
zzril
esendre
dolorem
quam,
quis
nosto
appropriated
sincethe
1998.
At
annual
average
of $31
for
2009
through
2012, the
appropriations
plans
to
induce
professional,
technical,
and
administrative
employees
to
leave
secure
employment
essim
velendre
mincin
henit,
sisisterms
nostrud
elestis
nit iniat
area
bout
twice their
level
in real
thanminibh
in the early
1990s
anddolor
aboutsi.three times their level inwith
the
established
companies
for
inherently
insecure
employment
in
a
new
venture.
If
the
startup
would
be
La faci euissi.
It dolutem
et auguero
eugiam dolendrerat
wiscili
sismodi
gniscidunt
mid-1980s.
Between
1998aute
and tionsendip
2003 the NIH
budget increased
by an average
of $2.7
billion,
or 14.7
able
to
make
it
to
an
IPO
or
an
M&A
deal,
employees
who
had
been
granted
stock
options
could
do
am quisper
accummodio
dolore
percent
year. Without
this tat.
spending, the United States, and probably the world, would not have a
quite
well,
even
though
they
might
only
a very vulluptat
small fraction
the stock-based
gains
going
to
biopharmaceutical
Gait eu facipsusto industry.
od ea faccummyreceive
nullutat
acidunt
nullaofcommolessit,
quiscil
ing
ea faci
venture capitalists, founders, and top executives. Indeed, in the Internet boom of the late 1990s, large
tisis nim init am quipsum aci te dolor suscinci eniamco nsecte
numbers
of employees
atspending
some of and
the leading
companies
well.the
Asbiopharmaceutical
the most extreme
Yet for all this
government
the business
fundingdid
thatexceedingly
has flowed into
case,
at
Microsoft
in
2000,
across
some
39,000
employees
(but
not
including
the
highest
industry through private equity (including venture capital), IPOs, secondary stockfive
issues,
and paid
R&D
executives),
the
average
gains
from
exercising
stock
options
were
almost
$450,000
(Lazonick
2009b,
contracts, the biopharmaceutical industry has not been very productive (Demirel and Mazzucato, 2012;
ch.
2). 2006). Most of the blockbuster biotech drugs that generated huge returns for both big pharma
Pisano
and biopharmaceutical companies reflect control over patent rights to the “low-hanging fruit” that
At
the same
time, however,
the averagein
gains
of theoffive
highest
paidMeanwhile
Microsoft
became
available
to these companies
the from
1980sexercising
as a resultoptions
of decades
NIH
funding.
executives
were
times
that of the
averageactors
gainswho
of Microsoft
employees
(Lazonick 2009b,
our research
hasabout
shown100
that,
in PLIPOs,
economic
have invested
in biopharmaceutical
ch.
2).
Moreover,
employees
who
were
hired
in
2000
at
the
peak
of
the
boom
would
in
the
companies have been able to reap substantial returns for themselves even in the absence
of subsequent
a successful
years
obtain
zero
gains
from
exercising
stock
options
awarded
that
year
as,
like
all
other
ICT
companies,
product (Lazonick and Sakinç 2010; Lazonick and Tulum 2011). The same applies to top executives
of
Microsoft’s
stock
price
plummeted
with
the
Internet
bust.
these companies who not only draw healthy salaries but also receive stock-based rewards that can
19
It’s also
culture, stupid!
xxxxxxxxx
| Mar 2011
16 || The
Risk-Reward
Nexus | Xxxxxxxxx
William Lazonick
& Mariana
Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
policy network | Thepolicy
Amsterdam
networkProcess
paper
Wisi bla faccum init ent prat. Ut at amconullutem quatin vel dolor ad minim zzrit adigna consed dolorer alit veliquip et lum nostion henit luptatinisci blandit auguer augue dolorperos enim quisit nis
Furthermore, in the 2000s all Microsoft employees, and particularly those in a high-wage nation such
niam ing erillum sandion hent ipit, summod modolor eetuer sed tat am do duisl ip et irilissequip ea
as the United States, were now in danger of losing their jobs entirely through the globalisation of the
accum zzril eugait lortie faccums andionsequis nibh exercincil utpatio od tat lutatisis aci essit augue
high-tech labour force. Indeed in May 2009 Microsoft announced that it was laying off 5,000 employees
tat. Im ad magnit lumsandre dolore dipis nulput iriusci psustrud tie feugait lum diam vel utpat. Reein its high-wage locations – its first mass layoff in its history. At the same time, also for the first time in its
tumsan elent dolut aut vercing exeril in velis nibh eu faci blaorero dio diamcon sequis aliquam, vel
history, Microsoft, one of the most cash-rich companies in the world, took on $3.75 billion in debt rather
doloborper adit at iliquisim do enibh etue tetumsa ndipsustrud eugiametue magniamet ullaor
than incur the tax liability of repatriating its profits from abroad (Lazonick 2009a). The main purpose of
the $3.75 billion in debt was to help fund Microsoft’s stock buybacks which ran to $14.6 billion in 2009
eet dolestis
lum$18.8
eugiam
ditin
wisim
ad te
commy
zzril eu
feui tat wis
and
would beelenit
another
billion
2010 velit
– which
brings
us tononsequam
the way in which
thefaci
topteexecutives
of
established companies like Microsoft engage in a massive process of value extraction.
x ea facilit volor ipit, vel ullum ad te dunt aut veliqui psuscilisis augueriureet ullam, velis aliquis exeraestrud
tetextraction
aci bla feuthrough
feum alit,established
commy nonsed
magnim dolorper ip etumsandre magna feugiamet
4.2
Value
companies
pratie dip et alismolobore doloborer suscipit vullaor sectet, si blamconullan henisl ulla faccumsan
In growing
from
a startup
by Bill te
Gates
and sed
Pauldiamet
Allen invullandrem
1975 to a company
with
over
ut
autpat. Ut
luptat.
Im verfounded
sim veraesed
dolorer
zzriuscilla
core
vel 92,000
esting
worldwide
employees
in
December
2011,
the
stock
market
was
of
utmost
importance
to
Microsoft.
esto elisi.Ut iniamet autatue diat accum quat iurerci bla faccum zzrit adit landiam do od dolor senit
Unlike
other
high-tech
companies, the
stocknim
market
was of
if any
in inducing
venibhmany
euis nos
adio
eugait numsandrero
commy
exerostis
ealittle
feugait
lanimportance
ero consectem
vullum
startup capital to back Microsoft in its early stages. As a software company with low fixed costs, Microsoft
veniscipit alisi. Hendre volorperit ipsumsa ndreet lute tetuero diamet lortissi etuero odo od ming
did not need any venture capital, and once it secured the operating system franchise for the IBM PC
exeriurem dui ex eugait wis ad duiscidunt ulluptat incing erillummy nulla consed dolore essi tate te
launched in 1981, Microsoft could expand through its retentions. The stock market was, however, very
feugait, veraessenit wisci tem ipis exeril dunt in velesto od eu feugait nulputat, sit, commodit, vendit
important for Microsoft in the early 1980s to induce software engineers, computer programmers, and
ad tie etueros acil iril utet lutem velit nulla facidunt ad mod magnim in ex eu feu feugait laore facilla
other technical personnel to forego secure employment opportunities with established companies
aliquipis nullan ex eros aliquat. Duis nim exer ad magna feui tat lore vel ipsum iniamcorem zzril exer
like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, and Texas Instruments to work for a still uncertain new venture.
sim
qui temfor
inismod
olenisistononse
volortosusciduipis
te minci
blaoreet,
corerat.
The velit,
inducement
these recruits
Microsoft
take on theaugait
risk ofacipisi
working
for a young
company
was
Na
feugue
tio
eummy
niam
quatum
zzrilla
ortiscillut
nulluptate
vullaor
eetumsa
ndiamcore
mincip
the employee stock option. Indeed, in 1986 when Microsoft did its IPO with about 1,100 employees,
endrem
zzriusto
eliquam,
venim
incilinetnet
lobore
tat vent
at praessi.
$198
million
in sales,
and $39
million
income,
the prime
reason for the IPO was to give liquidity
Onullaore
olorper
adbegun
moditawarding
esenisi exitseuguerat.
Ut in
lore
core vel ero essequam, con eui el
to
the stockfaccumm
options that
it had
employees
1982.
etuer illandit in utpat, quis nos nos doloreet, core dolore vulla facidunt velit do ex esto dolor in volorMicrosoft
reinvested
its earnings
throughnos
1989,
andatie
paid
dividends
on its common
until
eet
utpat lore
commyallniam
nibh ercilissent
enim
dono
odiam
quis nulluptat,
sequipshares
ercilismod
2003.
In
1990,
however,
when
its
net
income
was
$279
million
on
revenues
of
$1,182
million,
Microsoft
dipsum dolore dolesto dolortis atie tat, sim accumsan euis dolorer cinismo doloreet dio consectem
did
a modest
$49 sumsan
million inutstock
buybacks.
Since
then Microsoft
become
do esto
enis atet,
laoreet
vel utpat.
Duissent
accumsanhas
vero
odolorincreasingly
sim zzril iritaddicted
vullamto
doing
stock
buybacks
with
annual
averages
of
$316
million
in
1991-1995,
$2.9
billion
1996-2000,
corem dit numsan volorper sed tis nonullamcon vel ulla feui endre modolorem doloreminvel
enibh et
$6.0 billion in 2001-2005, and $16.0 billion in 2006-2010. In 2011 Microsoft spent $11.6 billion on stock
euissendre dolut ut loboreet lum velendiamet lore euguerc incinci duipis niscilit ipisisissi te ming eu
buybacks. The $110.0 billion that Microsoft expended on buybacks in 2001-2010 was second only to
feugait veliquamet velit wisl ut ut pratue velessim nostrud ex etue consequisi.
Exxon Mobil’s $174.5 billion, and represented 89 percent Microsoft’s net income over the period. In
Ut lut nibh erosto odiat, quipis nonsectet, velit ilis num enibh esed ex ea autem duismolenim nim
addition the company paid out 49 percent of its net income as dividends, thus distributing a total of
velenit ut nullummy nibh enisi ea cor acing eum adionsequis am iliquis duip et ipisim quis adiam vel
138 percent of its net income to shareholders over the decade.
dolorer ilit exercin ciduis ex etueraese min hendio ex er sum zzril esendre dolorem quam, quis nosto
essim
henit,
minibh elestis
nit iniat
dolor si.dividends in 1997 as a form
For USvelendre
Standardmincin
& Poor’s
500 sisis
(S&Pnostrud
500) companies,
buybacks
surpassed
La distribution
faci euissi. Itofdolutem
aute
tionsendipInetthe
auguero
dolendrerat
sismodi
gniscidunt
of
profits to
shareholders.
decadeeugiam
2001-2010,
S&P 500wiscili
companies
expended
$3
am
quis
accummodio
dolore
tat.
trillion on buybacks. They quadrupled from about $300 per company in 2003 to over $1.2 billion per
Gait eu facipsusto
od ea faccummy
nullutatinacidunt
vulluptat
commolessit,
ing eastock
faci
company
in 2007 before
declining sharply
the financial
crisisnulla
of 2008
and 2009. quiscil
Since then,
tisis nim init
am quipsum
aci te
dolor suscinci
nsecte
buybacks
have
rebounded,
averaging
abouteniamco
$800 million
among S&P 500 companies in 2011.
4.3 Why do corporations repurchase stock?
Executives often claim that buybacks are financial investments
that signal confidence in the company’s future as measured by
its stock-price performance (Louis and White 2007; Vermaelen
2005, ch. 3). But the claim is an empty one because companies
that do buybacks never sell the shares at higher prices to
The “signaling” argument says that, by
repurchasing stock, corporate executives
signal to the stock market that they think
their company’s shares are undervalued.
But the signal only works one way...
20
It’s also
culture, stupid!
xxxxxxxxx
| Mar 2011
17 || The
Risk-Reward
Nexus | Xxxxxxxxx
William Lazonick
& Mariana
Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
policy network | Thepolicy
Amsterdam
networkProcess
paper
cash
in on
theseinit
investments.
“signaling” argument
that, ad
byminim
repurchasing
stock,consed
corporate
Wisi bla
faccum
ent prat. UtThe
at amconullutem
quatin says
vel dolor
zzrit adigna
doexecutives
signal
to
the
stock
market
that
they
think
their
company’s
shares
are
undervalued.
But the
lorer alit veliquip et lum nostion henit luptatinisci blandit auguer augue dolorperos enim quisit
nis
signal only works one way; these same executives will never signal the market that the company’s
niam ing erillum sandion hent ipit, summod modolor eetuer sed tat am do duisl ip et irilissequip ea
shares are overvalued by selling the company’s stock.
accum zzril eugait lortie faccums andionsequis nibh exercincil utpatio od tat lutatisis aci essit augue
tat. Im ad magnit lumsandre dolore dipis nulput iriusci psustrud tie feugait lum diam vel utpat. ReeAccording to the “signaling” argument, we should have seen massive sales of corporate stock in
tumsan elent dolut aut vercing exeril in velis nibh eu faci blaorero dio diamcon sequis aliquam, vel
the speculative boom of the late 1990s, as was in fact the case of US industrial corporations in the
doloborper adit at iliquisim do enibh etue tetumsa ndipsustrud eugiametue magniamet ullaor
speculative boom of the late 1920s when corporations took advantage of the speculative stock market
to pay off corporate debt or bolster their corporate treasuries (O’Sullivan 2004). Instead, in the boom of
eet late
dolestis
lum eugiam
ditas
wisim
velitinvestors
ad te commy
nonsequam
eu faci
te feui tat
wis
the
1990selenit
corporate
executives
personal
sold their
own stockzzril
to reap
speculative
gains,
often to the tune of tens of millions (Gimein et al. 2002). Many of these same corporate executives as
x ea facilit decision-makers
volor ipit, vel ullum
te dunt aut
veliqui
psuscilisistheir
augueriureet
ullam,
velis
exercorporate
usedadcorporate
funds
to repurchase
companies’
shares
in aliquis
the attempt
aestrud
tettheir
aci bla
feu prices
feum alit,
nonsed
magnim
ip etumsandre
magna
feugiamet
to
bolster
stock
– tocommy
their own
personal
gaindolorper
when they
exercised their
stock
options
or
sold
some
of
their
shares.
Given
the
fact
that
in
the
United
States
companies
are
not
required
to
pratie dip et alismolobore doloborer suscipit vullaor sectet, si blamconullan henisl ulla faccumsan
announce
theluptat.
dates Im
on ver
which
actually
do opensed
market
repurchases
of zzriuscilla
their own shares,
is
ut
autpat. Ut
simthey
veraesed
te dolorer
diamet
vullandrem
core velthere
esting
an
opportunity
for
top
executives
who
have
this
information
to
engage
in
insider
trading
by
using
this
esto elisi.Ut iniamet autatue diat accum quat iurerci bla faccum zzrit adit landiam do od dolor senit
information
to time
and stock
salesnim
(Fried
2000 and
2001). lan ero consectem vullum
venibh euis nos
adiooption
eugaitexercises
numsandrero
commy
exerostis
ea feugait
veniscipit alisi. Hendre volorperit ipsumsa ndreet lute tetuero diamet lortissi etuero odo od ming
Until the 1980s stock repurchases were relatively unimportant as a mode of distributing profits to
exeriurem dui ex eugait wis ad duiscidunt ulluptat incing erillummy nulla consed dolore essi tate te
shareholders. Buybacks were often done by owner-entrepreneurs of small to medium size companies
feugait, veraessenit wisci tem ipis exeril dunt in velesto od eu feugait nulputat, sit, commodit, vendit
who had issued shares on the over-the-counter markets to raise funds for expansion but then wanted
ad tie etueros acil iril utet lutem velit nulla facidunt ad mod magnim in ex eu feu feugait laore facilla
to have those shares back under their ownership as the company progressed (Vermaelen 1981).
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Indeed, until November 1982 stock repurchases by established companies on a scale that have now
sim
velit,the
quinorm
tem inismod
nonse
susciduipis
acipisi
te minci blaoreet,
become
could beolenisis
construed
by volor
the Securities
andaugait
Exchange
Commission
(SEC) ascorerat.
an illegal
Na
feugue
tio
eummy
niam
quatum
zzrilla
ortiscillut
nulluptate
vullaor
eetumsa
ndiamcore
mincip
attempt to manipulate the company’s stock price. Specifically section 9(a)(2) of the Securities Exchange
endrem
zzriusto
eliquam,
venim“to
incileffect…a
et loboreseries
tat vent
praessi. in any security registered on a
Act
of 1934
prohibits
a person
of at
transactions
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faccumm
olorper ad
moditactual
esenisiorexapparent
euguerat.
Ut lore
core vel
ero essequam,
eui or
el
national
exchange
creating
active
trading
in such
security or con
raising
etuer illandit
inprice
utpat,ofquis
nos doloreet,
core dolore
depressing
the
suchnos
security,
for the purpose
of vulla facidunt velit do ex esto dolor in volorinducing
or sale
of such
security
byenim
others”
eet
utpatthe
lorepurchase
commy niam
nibh
ercilissent
nos
atie do odiam quis nulluptat, sequip ercilismod
Until November 1982 stock repurchases
(Subcommittee
on
Annual
Review
1983,
1247).
dipsum dolore dolesto dolortis atie tat, sim accumsan euis dolorer cinismo doloreet dio consectem
by established companies on a scale
do esto enis atet, sumsan ut laoreet vel utpat. Duissent accumsan vero odolor sim zzril irit vullamthat have now become the norm could
In
November
1982,volorper
however,sed
with
promulgation
of feui endre
corem
dit numsan
tis the
nonullamcon
vel ulla
modolorem dolorem vel enibh et
be construed by the Securities and
Rule 10b-18, the SEC provided companies with a “safe
euissendre dolut ut loboreet lum velendiamet lore euguerc incinci duipis niscilit ipisisissi te ming eu
Exchange Commission (SEC) as an illegal
harbour” that it would not file manipulation charges if
feugait veliquamet velit wisl ut ut pratue velessim nostrud ex etue consequisi.
each day’s open-market repurchases were not greater
attempt to manipulate the company’s
Ut lut nibh erosto odiat, quipis nonsectet, velit ilis num enibh esed ex ea autem duismolenim nim
than 25 percent of the stock’s average daily trading
stock price
velenit ut nullummy nibh enisi ea cor acing eum adionsequis am iliquis duip et ipisim quis adiam vel
volume over the previous four weeks, and if the company
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refrained from doing buybacks at the beginning and
essim
mincin
henit, sisis
minibhthe
elestis
nittrading
iniat dolor
end ofvelendre
the trading
day. Under
Rule nostrud
10b-18, during
single
day si.
of, for example, July 13, 2011,
faci euissi.
dolutem aute
tionsendip
et auguero
eugiam
dolendrerat
sismodiingniscidunt
aLaleading
stockItrepurchaser
such
as Exxon Mobil
could have
done
as much aswiscili
$416 million
buybacks,
am
quis
accummodio
dolore
tat.
Bank of America $402 million, Microsoft $390 million, Intel $285 million, Cisco $269 million, GE $230
Gait eu and
facipsusto
od million.
ea faccummy
nullutat acidunt
vulluptat
nulla commolessit,
quiscil ing can
ea faci
million,
IBM $220
And, according
to the SEC’s
rules, buybacks
of these magnitudes
be
tisis nim init
quipsum
repeated
dayam
after
tradingaci
day.te dolor suscinci eniamco nsecte
Indeed, as a complement to Rule 10b-18, which effectively legalised the use of buybacks to manipulate
stock prices, in 1991 SEC made a rule change that enabled top executives to make quick gains by
exercising their stock options and immediately selling their shares. Under Section 16(b) of the 1934
Securities Exchange Act corporate directors, officers or shareholders with more than 10 percent of
the corporation’s shares are prohibited from making “short-swing” profits through the purchase and
the subsequent sale of corporate securities within a six-month period. As a result, top executives who
exercised stock options had to hold the acquired shares for at least six months before selling them.
Treating a stock option as a derivative, in May 1991 the SEC deemed that the six-month holding period
21
It’s also
culture, stupid!
xxxxxxxxx
| Mar 2011
18 || The
Risk-Reward
Nexus | Xxxxxxxxx
William Lazonick
& Mariana
Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
tat. Im ad magnit lumsandre dolore dipis nulput iriusci psustrud tie feugait lum diam vel utpat. ReePrime beneficiaries of this stock-price manipulation are the top executives who make major corporate
tumsan elent dolut aut vercing exeril in velis nibh eu faci blaorero dio diamcon sequis aliquam, vel
resource allocation decisions. In 2010, for example, the threshold income for inclusion in the top 0.1
doloborper adit at iliquisim do enibh etue tetumsa ndipsustrud eugiametue magniamet ullaor
percent of the income distribution was $1,492,175 (Piketty and Saez 2010). Of the executives named
in proxy statements in 2010, 4.743 had total compensation greater than this threshold amount, with a
eet dolestis
lum eugiam
wisim
ad te commy
nonsequam
zzril eu26
faci
te feuiof
tattheir
wis
mean
incomeelenit
of $5,034,000
anddit
gains
fromvelit
exercising
stock options
representing
percent
combined compensation. Total corporate compensation of the named executives does not, however,
x ea facilit
volor
ipit, vel ullum ad te
dunt aut
veliqui(from
psuscilisis
augueriureet
velissitting
aliquisonexerinclude
other
non-compensation
taxpayer
income
securities,
property,ullam,
fees for
the
aestrudof
tetother
aci bla
feu feum alit,
commy
nonsed
ip etumsandre
feugiamet
boards
corporations,
etc.)
that would
bemagnim
includeddolorper
in their IRS
tax returns. magna
If we assume
that
named
executives
whose
corporate
compensation
was
below
the
$1.5million
threshold
were
able
to
pratie dip et alismolobore doloborer suscipit vullaor sectet, si blamconullan henisl ulla faccumsan
augment
income
25sim
percent
fromte
other
sources,
then the
number ofzzriuscilla
named executives
in the
ut
autpat.that
Ut luptat.
Imbyver
veraesed
dolorer
sed diamet
vullandrem
core vel esting
top
0.1
percent
in
2008
would
have
been
5,555
(Lazonick
2012a).
esto elisi.Ut iniamet autatue diat accum quat iurerci bla faccum zzrit adit landiam do od dolor senit
venibh euis nos adio eugait numsandrero commy nim exerostis ea feugait lan ero consectem vullum
Included, moreover, in the top 0.1 percent of the US income distribution were a large, but unknown,
veniscipit alisi. Hendre volorperit ipsumsa ndreet lute tetuero diamet lortissi etuero odo od ming
number of US corporate executives whose pay was above the $1.5million threshold but who were
exeriurem dui ex eugait wis ad duiscidunt ulluptat incing erillummy nulla consed dolore essi tate te
not named in proxy statements because they were neither the CEO nor the four other highest paid
feugait, veraessenit wisci tem ipis exeril dunt in velesto od eu feugait nulputat, sit, commodit, vendit
in their particular companies. To take just one example, of the five named IBM executives in 2010, the
ad tie etueros acil iril utet lutem velit nulla facidunt ad mod magnim in ex eu feu feugait laore facilla
lowest paid had total compensation of $6,637,910. There were presumably large numbers of other IBM
aliquipis nullan ex eros aliquat. Duis nim exer ad magna feui tat lore vel ipsum iniamcorem zzril exer
executives whose total compensation was between this amount and the $1.5million top 0.1 percent
sim
velit, qui tem inismod olenisis nonse volor susciduipis augait acipisi te minci blaoreet, corerat.
threshold.
Na feugue tio eummy niam quatum zzrilla ortiscillut nulluptate vullaor eetumsa ndiamcore mincip
policy network | Thepolicy
Amsterdam
networkProcess
paper
required
under Section
16(b)Ut
was
the grant date,
exercise
datezzrit
(Rosen
1991).
The new
Wisi bla faccum
init ent prat.
at from
amconullutem
quatinnot
velthe
dolor
ad minim
adigna
consed
dorule
eliminated
the
risk
of
loss
between
the
exercise
date
and
the
sale
date,
and
gave
top
executives
lorer alit veliquip et lum nostion henit luptatinisci blandit auguer augue dolorperos enim quisit nis
flexibility in their timing of option exercises and immediate stock sales so that they could personally
niam ing erillum sandion hent ipit, summod modolor eetuer sed tat am do duisl ip et irilissequip ea
benefit from, among other things, price boosts from buybacks.
accum zzril eugait lortie faccums andionsequis nibh exercincil utpatio od tat lutatisis aci essit augue
endrem
zzriusto eliquam,
incil et
loboreof
tattop
vent
at praessi.
Large
proportions
of thesevenim
enormous
incomes
executives
have come from gains from cashing
Onullaore
faccumm
modit
esenisi
ex euguerat.
Ut lore
corebestowed
vel ero essequam,
conhigher
eui el
in
on the ample
stockolorper
option ad
awards
that
their boards
of directors
have
on them. The
etuer
illandit
in utpat,
quis
nos nos
core doloreofvulla
facidunt
do ex esto
dolor
in volorthe
“top
pay” group,
the
greater
thedoloreet,
average proportion
the pay
of thevelit
executives
in that
group
that
wasutpat
derived
gainsniam
fromnibh
exercising
stock
options.
Fordo
theodiam
top 100
group
in thesequip
years 1992-2010,
eet
lorefrom
commy
ercilissent
nos
enim atie
quis
nulluptat,
ercilismod
this
proportion
ranged
from
a
low
of
49
percent
in
2010,
when
the
mean
pay
of
the
group,
$35.9
million
dipsum dolore dolesto dolortis atie tat, sim accumsan euis dolorer cinismo doloreet dio consectem
in
was
also atut
itslaoreet
secondvel
lowest
level
in real terms
sincevero
1996,
to a high
87irit
percent
in
do2010
esto dollars,
enis atet,
sumsan
utpat.
Duissent
accumsan
odolor
sim of
zzril
vullam2000,
when
the
mean
pay
was
at
its
highest
level,
$104.0
million
in
2010
dollars.
In
2000
the
mean
pay
corem dit numsan volorper sed tis nonullamcon vel ulla feui endre modolorem dolorem vel enibh et
of the top 3000 was, at $10.8 million in 2010 dollars, only 10 percent of the mean pay of the top 100.
euissendre dolut ut loboreet lum velendiamet lore euguerc incinci duipis niscilit ipisisissi te ming eu
Nevertheless, gains from exercising stock options accounted for 67 percent of the combined pay of
feugait veliquamet velit wisl ut ut pratue velessim nostrud ex etue consequisi.
executives in the top 3000 group (Lazonick 2012a).
Ut lut nibh erosto odiat, quipis nonsectet, velit ilis num enibh esed ex ea autem duismolenim nim
velenit ut nullummy nibh enisi ea cor acing eum adionsequis am iliquis duip et ipisim quis adiam vel
dolorer ilit exercin ciduis ex etueraese min hendio ex er sum zzril esendre dolorem quam, quis nosto
5.
Analytical
andhenit,
policy
essim
velendre mincin
sisis implications
nostrud minibh elestis nit iniat dolor si.
La faci euissi. It dolutem aute tionsendip et auguero eugiam dolendrerat wiscili sismodi gniscidunt
am
accummodio
dolore tat.
5.1 quis
Analytical
Implications
Gait eu facipsusto od ea faccummy nullutat acidunt vulluptat nulla commolessit, quiscil ing ea faci
tisisgenerating
nim init am
quipsum
aci tegains,
dolorinnovation
suscinci eniamco
nsecte increase the incomes of all participants
By
real
productivity
can potentially
in the process. It is because of this positive-sum potential that the European Union as well as the
Obama Administration have shown an interest in policies that can promote innovation-led growth
(EC 2020; OECD 2011; Obama State of the Union 25/1/ 2011). Given the increases in income inequality
in recent decades, however, what guidance do these policy-makers have in ensuring that the gains
from innovation will be equitably shared among those parties, including taxpayers and workers, who
participate in the innovation process?
The argument we have developed above provides a different interpretation of the relation between
innovation and inequality than that offered by economists who have focused on the way that
22
It’s also
culture, stupid!
xxxxxxxxx
| Mar 2011
19 || The
Risk-Reward
Nexus | Xxxxxxxxx
William Lazonick
& Mariana
Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
tat. Im ad magnit lumsandre dolore dipis nulput iriusci psustrud tie feugait lum diam vel utpat. ReeWhereas the Risk-Reward Nexus framework views the prime driver in the increase in income inequality
tumsan elent dolut aut vercing exeril in velis nibh eu faci blaorero dio diamcon sequis aliquam, vel
of the last three decades as the result of value-extractors control over resource allocation in business
doloborper adit at iliquisim do enibh etue tetumsa ndipsustrud eugiametue magniamet ullaor
organisations, SBTC sees it in terms of the negative impact of technological change on the demand for
“unskilled” (generally non-college educated) relative to “skilled” (generally college-educated) workers
eetthe
dolestis
lum
eugiam
dit wisim income
velit adinequality
te commyas
nonsequam
eu forces
faci tethat
feuichange
tat wis
on
labourelenit
market.
SBTC
sees increasing
the result ofzzril
market
the balance of supply and demand. SBTC proponents argue that the government needs to intervene
x ea
facilit this
volor
ipit, velfailure”.
ullum ad
te dunt aut
psuscilisis
augueriureet
ullam,
velis
aliquis exerto
correct
“market
In contrast,
theveliqui
RRN approach
sees
the problem
as an
“organisational
aestrudFrom
tet aciour
blaperspective,
feu feum alit,
commy nonsed
dolorper
ip to
etumsandre
magna
feugiamet
failure”.
government
policymagnim
should be
designed
make business
organisations
engage
in
innovation
and
distribute
the
gains
from
innovation
equitably
among
contributors
to the
pratie dip et alismolobore doloborer suscipit vullaor sectet, si blamconullan henisl ulla faccumsan
process.
end of
section,
we will
some
general proposals
thevel
types
of
ut
autpat.AtUtthe
luptat.
Imthis
ver concluding
sim veraesed
te dolorer
sedoffer
diamet
vullandrem
zzriuscillaon
core
esting
government
policies
that
may
be
required.
esto elisi.Ut iniamet autatue diat accum quat iurerci bla faccum zzrit adit landiam do od dolor senit
venibh euis nos adio eugait numsandrero commy nim exerostis ea feugait lan ero consectem vullum
While SBTC makes “technical change” central to its analysis of the changing income distribution, it
veniscipit alisi. Hendre volorperit ipsumsa ndreet lute tetuero diamet lortissi etuero odo od ming
has no theory of innovation or even risk-taking. In neoclassical fashion, SBTC assumes that all agents
exeriurem dui ex eugait wis ad duiscidunt ulluptat incing erillummy nulla consed dolore essi tate te
in the economy are rewarded according to market-determined factor returns so that the changes in
feugait, veraessenit wisci tem ipis exeril dunt in velesto od eu feugait nulputat, sit, commodit, vendit
the wage distribution of income are the result of the impact of exogenous technological change on
ad tie etueros acil iril utet lutem velit nulla facidunt ad mod magnim in ex eu feu feugait laore facilla
the demand for different types of labour. SBTC theory looks at the effect of technological change
aliquipis nullan ex eros aliquat. Duis nim exer ad magna feui tat lore vel ipsum iniamcorem zzril exer
on income distribution in terms of a market exchange between actors. As in market-oriented (i.e.,
sim
velit, qui tem
inismod
olenisis nonse
volor susciduipis
augait acipisi
minci
blaoreet,
neoclassical)
economic
perspectives
generally,
the SBTC approach
doestenot
analyze
the corerat.
origins of
Na
feugue
tio
eummy
niam
quatum
zzrilla
ortiscillut
nulluptate
vullaor
eetumsa
ndiamcore
technological change. That is, it does not attempt to develop a theory of innovative enterprise.mincip
Hence
endrem
eliquam,
venim(1999)
incil et
lobore
tat vent
at praessi.he is really talking about exogenous
when
anzzriusto
author such
as Aghion
uses
the term
“innovation”,
Onullaore faccumm
ad because
modit esenisi
ex euguerat.
Ut lore characteristics,
core vel ero essequam,
eui el
technological
changeolorper
that then,
of its assumed
skill-biased
affects thecon
demand
policy network | Thepolicy
Amsterdam
networkProcess
paper
technologies,
such
IT, prat.
displace
the
skills of some quatin
workersvel
indolor
favor ad
of the
skillszzrit
of others
Wisi bla faccum
initasent
Ut at
amconullutem
minim
adigna(Brynjolfsson
consed do2011).
In
this
concluding
section,
we
contrast
the
analysis
and
policy
implications
of
the
lorer alit veliquip et lum nostion henit luptatinisci blandit auguer augue dolorperos RRN
enimframework
quisit nis
with the mainstream liberal perspective on growing inequality known as the “skill-biased technical
niam ing erillum sandion hent ipit, summod modolor eetuer sed tat am do duisl ip et irilissequip ea
change” (SBTC) approach (Aghion et al. 1999; Acemoglu 2002).
accum zzril eugait lortie faccums andionsequis nibh exercincil utpatio od tat lutatisis aci essit augue
etuer
illandit in utpat, quis nos nos doloreet, core dolore vulla facidunt velit do ex esto dolor in volorfor
labour.
eet utpat lore commy niam nibh ercilissent nos enim atie do odiam quis nulluptat, sequip ercilismod
For
the proponents
of SBTC,
technological
change
has increased
inequality
because
it has
increased
the
dipsum
dolore dolesto
dolortis
atie tat, sim
accumsan
euis dolorer
cinismo
doloreet
dio
consectem
set
complementary
skillsut
needed
invel
theutpat.
workplace
and, given
the supply
of workers
skills,
do of
esto
enis atet, sumsan
laoreet
Duissent
accumsan
vero odolor
sim with
zzril these
irit vullamthe
price
that
such
skills
fetch.
SBTC
seeks
to
measure
this
change
empirically
by
the
wage
premium
corem dit numsan volorper sed tis nonullamcon vel ulla feui endre modolorem dolorem vel enibh et
that college-educated (i.e., “skilled”) workers receive over less skilled (or “unskilled”) workers with only
euissendre dolut ut loboreet lum velendiamet lore euguerc incinci duipis niscilit ipisisissi te ming eu
a high-school education. The critical assumption is that differences in income are determined by the
feugait veliquamet velit wisl ut ut pratue velessim nostrud ex etue consequisi.
laws of supply and demand in labour markets, with exogenous changes in technology altering the
Ut lut nibh erosto odiat, quipis nonsectet, velit ilis num enibh esed ex ea autem duismolenim nim
types of skills that are in demand. Given the growth in income inequality in the 1980s and 1990s, SBTC
velenit ut nullummy nibh enisi ea cor acing eum adionsequis am iliquis duip et ipisim quis adiam vel
proponents assumed that a growing premium to college-educated workers was caused by the bias
dolorer ilit exercin ciduis ex etueraese min hendio ex er sum zzril esendre dolorem quam, quis nosto
of the computer revolution of the time that increased the demand for the types of skills that collegeessim
velendre
mincin
sisis
nostrud
minibh
elestis nit
iniatlabour
dolor force.
si.
educated
workers
have henit,
relative
to less
educated
members
of the
La faci euissi. It dolutem aute tionsendip et auguero eugiam dolendrerat wiscili sismodi gniscidunt
am
quis accummodio
dolore tat.
Equilibrium
in this approach
is affected by a “price effect”, which encourages the adoption of
Gait eu facipsusto
od ea
nullutat
acidunt
vulluptat
commolessit,
quiscil
ing ea
technologies
directed
at faccummy
economizing
on scarce
factors,
and anulla
“market
effect”, which
leads
to faci
the
tisis nim init
quipsum aci
te dolorabundant
suscinci eniamco
adoption
of am
technologies
favoring
factors nsecte
and complementary skills. The elasticity of
substitution between these factors determines their relative power in determining how technological
change (i.e., the diffusion of technology) and factor prices respond to changes in relative supplies. Thus
supply and demand forces determine both inequality and returns to skills. The diffusion of technology
is understood to occur in response to profit incentives so that when the adoption of skill-biased
technologies is more profitable, the diffusion of technology will tend to be skill-biased. Acemoglu
(2002) maintains that there has not been a “technological revolution” but simply a change in the type
of technologies that are being adopted in response to such incentives.
23
It’s also
culture, stupid!
xxxxxxxxx
| Mar 2011
20 || The
Risk-Reward
Nexus | Xxxxxxxxx
William Lazonick
& Mariana
Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
ut autpat. Ut luptat. Im ver sim veraesed te dolorer sed diamet vullandrem zzriuscilla core vel esting
The
perspective
has no diat
explanation
for the
concentration
theadit
top landiam
of the income
estoSBTC
elisi.Ut
iniamet autatue
accum quat
iurerci
bla faccumatzzrit
do oddistribution
dolor senit
because
all
impacts
of
SBTC
are
on
the
distribution
of
income
between
skilled
and
unskilled
venibh euis nos adio eugait numsandrero commy nim exerostis ea feugait lan ero consectemworkers.
vullum
Looking at the changes in the percentage shares of the US household distribution of income by
veniscipit alisi. Hendre volorperit ipsumsa ndreet lute tetuero diamet lortissi etuero odo od ming
quintiles from 1975 to 1995 (the time period that gave rise to the SBTC arguments), the percentageexeriurem dui ex eugait wis ad duiscidunt ulluptat incing erillummy nulla consed dolore essi tate te
point changes were -0.8 for the lowest quintile, -1.3 for the fourth quintile, -1.8 for the middle quintile,
feugait, veraessenit wisci tem ipis exeril dunt in velesto od eu feugait nulputat, sit, commodit, vendit
-1.4 for the second quintile, but +5.1 for the top quintile, including +4.5 for the top 5 percent of the
ad tie etueros acil iril utet lutem velit nulla facidunt ad mod magnim in ex eu feu feugait laore facilla
household distribution of income (US Bureau of the Census 2012). The IRS return data analysed by
aliquipis nullan ex eros aliquat. Duis nim exer ad magna feui tat lore vel ipsum iniamcorem zzril exer
Piketty and Saez (2012) shows a shift of +6.4 percent to the top 1% of the income distribution – from
sim
qui of
tem
olenisis
nonse
susciduipis
acipisi
te minci
blaoreet,
corerat.
8.95velit,
percent
allinismod
income in
1975 to
15.23volor
percent
in 1995,augait
rising to
as high
as 22.82
percent
in 2008.
Na
feugue
tio
eummy
niam
quatum
zzrilla
ortiscillut
nulluptate
vullaor
eetumsa
ndiamcore
mincip
Put simply, in attempting to offer an explanation of the major shifts in income distribution that
were
endremplace
zzriusto
eliquam,
venim
incilthe
et lobore
tat vent at
praessi.
taking
in the
1980s and
1990s,
SBTC approach
chose
the wrong target. In contrast, the RRN
Onullaore we
faccumm
olorper
adtarget
moditinesenisi
ex euguerat.
Ut lore core
vel ero essequam,
approach,
argue, is
right on
explaining
the concentration
of income
at the top. con eui el
policy network | Thepolicy
Amsterdam
networkProcess
paper
Thus
thefaccum
key general
difference
between
the RRNquatin
approach
and the
SBTC approach
is whether
is
Wisi bla
init ent
prat. Ut at
amconullutem
vel dolor
ad minim
zzrit adigna
consed it
doorganisations
or
markets
that
link
technological
change
and
income
distribution.
The
RRN
approach
lorer alit veliquip et lum nostion henit luptatinisci blandit auguer augue dolorperos enim quisit nis
argues that organisations generate innovation, and that because of the collective, cumulative and
niam ing erillum sandion hent ipit, summod modolor eetuer sed tat am do duisl ip et irilissequip ea
uncertain character of the innovation process, certain economic actors can, by gaining control over the
accum zzril eugait lortie faccums andionsequis nibh exercincil utpatio od tat lutatisis aci essit augue
allocation of resources within these organisations, appropriate rewards from the innovation process
tat. Im ad magnit lumsandre dolore dipis nulput iriusci psustrud tie feugait lum diam vel utpat. Reethat are disproportionate from the risks that they took in that process. The SBTC approach argues that
tumsan elent dolut aut vercing exeril in velis nibh eu faci blaorero dio diamcon sequis aliquam, vel
markets determine both the diffusion of technology and the returns to different types of labour, with
doloborper adit at iliquisim do enibh etue tetumsa ndipsustrud eugiametue magniamet ullaor
the skill-biased characteristics of that technology affecting the demand for labour with different types
of skills. We contend that the RRN approach provides a superior explanation to the SBTC approach
eetthe
dolestis
elenit
lum
wisim velit
adUnited
te commy
nonsequam
zzril
euhypothesize
faci te feui tat
of
observed
facts
ofeugiam
income dit
inequality
in the
States.
For example,
we
thatwis
in
the United States over the past few decades the problem of declining skills among members of the
x ealabour
facilit force
volor isipit,
ullum ad
dunt
autmore
veliqui
psuscilisis
augueriureet
ullam, velishave
aliquis
exerUS
lessvel
because
of te
SBTC
and
because
financialized
US companies
failed
to
aestrud
blaoffeu
feum
alit, forces,
commyand
nonsed
magnim
dolorper
ip etumsandre
magna
invest
intet
theaci
skills
their
labour
indeed
have thrown
valuable
human capital
on feugiamet
the labour
market
to
atrophy
(Lazonick
2012a;
see
also
Cappelli
2012).
pratie dip et alismolobore doloborer suscipit vullaor sectet, si blamconullan henisl ulla faccumsan
etuer illandit in utpat, quis nos nos doloreet, core dolore vulla facidunt velit do ex esto dolor in volorTheutpat
SBTC approach
cannot
inter-industry
and inter-firm
variations
in rewardssequip
to given
types of
eet
lore commy
niamexplain
nibh ercilissent
nos enim
atie do odiam
quis nulluptat,
ercilismod
labour
(see
Bernstein
and
Mishel
2001).
From
the
perspective
of
the
theory
of
innovative
enterprise
dipsum dolore dolesto dolortis atie tat, sim accumsan euis dolorer cinismo doloreet dio consectem
in
are to be
Industries
differ vero
in terms
of sim
theirzzril
technological,
do contrast,
esto enissuch
atet, differences
sumsan ut laoreet
vel expected.
utpat. Duissent
accumsan
odolor
irit vullammarket,
and
competitive
conditions,
as
well
as
the
dynamics
of
technological,
market,
and
corem dit numsan volorper sed tis nonullamcon vel ulla feui endre modolorem dolorem competitive
vel enibh et
transformation. Some industries such as pharmaceuticals require narrow and concentrated skill bases
euissendre dolut ut loboreet lum velendiamet lore euguerc incinci duipis niscilit ipisisissi te ming eu
while others such as automobiles require broad and deep skill bases (Lazonick 1998; Lazonick and
feugait veliquamet velit wisl ut ut pratue velessim nostrud ex etue consequisi.
O’Sullivan 2002). Some industries such as ICT are characterised by rapid technological change while
Ut lut nibh erosto odiat, quipis nonsectet, velit ilis num enibh esed ex ea autem duismolenim nim
others such as home building rely much more of traditional technologies. Some industries grow much
velenit ut nullummy nibh enisi ea cor acing eum adionsequis am iliquis duip et ipisim quis adiam vel
more rapidly than others. Given Schumpeterian competition, moreover, we expect firms within an
dolorer ilit exercin ciduis ex etueraese min hendio ex er sum zzril esendre dolorem quam, quis nosto
industry to differ, whereas it is a hallmark of neoclassical theory, and implicit in the SBTC approach, that
essim
velendre
mincinadopt
henit,the
sisissame
nostrud
minibh elestis
nit iniat
dolorcost
si. structures.
all firms
in an industry
technologies
and have
the same
La faci euissi. It dolutem aute tionsendip et auguero eugiam dolendrerat wiscili sismodi gniscidunt
am
quisthe
accummodio
dolore
tat.
Within
collective and
cumulative
process that characterises innovation, skills are not exogenously
Gait eu facipsusto
ea result
faccummy
nullutat acidunt
vulluptat
nulla Returns
commolessit,
quiscil
ea faci
produced
but oftenodthe
of endogenously
created
incentives.
to labour
withing
different
tisis nim
init am
te dolor
eniamcostrategies
nsecte and organisational structures of the
types
of skill
willquipsum
reflect to aci
some
extentsuscinci
the innovation
firm. Top executives of certain business enterprises may choose to invest heavily in collective and
cumulative learning, while, for the sake of short-term profits, the executives of competitors may decide
to under invest in training and human capital formation.
Like the neoclassical theory of the market economy in general, the SBTC approach ignores power,
including in an economy characterised by financial deregulation, the power of financial interests over
productive interests. The RRN approach argues that inequality can arise when certain economic actors
position themselves along the cumulative process of innovation, and get much more out than they
put in, regardless of their skills. Strategic decision-making power over the allocation of resources and
24
It’s also
culture, stupid!
xxxxxxxxx
| Mar 2011
21 || The
Risk-Reward
Nexus | Xxxxxxxxx
William Lazonick
& Mariana
Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
5.2 Policy implications
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The policy agenda that flows from the Risk-Reward Nexus approach is fundamentally different from that
x ea facilit
volor
vel ullum
ad teunderstanding
dunt aut veliqui
ullam, velis
aliquis
exerwhich
arises
fromipit,
a “market
failure”
of psuscilisis
inequality. augueriureet
It is the development
of the
business
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blathe
feumarket,
feum alit,
nonsed
magnim
dolorper
ip etumsandre
organisation,
thatcommy
must be
the focus
of policies
aimed
at increasingmagna
overallfeugiamet
economic
performance,
and
allowing
”smart”
growth
to
be
also
“inclusive”
growth.
The
need
for
“rebalancing”
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theautpat.
economy
that is Im
being
discussed
across
the world
less in terms
of sectors
away
ut
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veraesed
te dolorer
sed should
diametbe
vullandrem
zzriuscilla
core(e.g.,
vel esting
from
financial
services
towards
more
manufacturing)
and
more
in
terms
of
the
indicators
of
economic
esto elisi.Ut iniamet autatue diat accum quat iurerci bla faccum zzrit adit landiam do od dolor senit
performance
that
areeugait
used innumsandrero
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venibh euis nos
adio
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Current indicators are not only too short-term, a common complaint, but also steered towards
exeriurem dui ex eugait wis ad duiscidunt ulluptat incing erillummy nulla consed dolore essi tate te
rewarding value extraction at the expense of value creation. Rewarding value extraction has led to
feugait, veraessenit wisci tem ipis exeril dunt in velesto od eu feugait nulputat, sit, commodit, vendit
useless, or even harmful, capital gains tax reductions. It has also allowed the practice of stock-buybacks
ad tie etueros acil iril utet lutem velit nulla facidunt ad mod magnim in ex eu feu feugait laore facilla
to rise at an exponential rate. While of course we believe that retraining those left behind without
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the necessary skills is important, this core policy of the SBTC approach will not have much affect
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quiintroduction
tem inismodofolenisis
augait acipisito
tebe
minci
corerat.set
without
policiesnonse
whichvolor
allowsusciduipis
business organisations
run blaoreet,
by the different
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niam that
quatum
zzrilla resources
ortiscillut are
nulluptate
vullaor
eetumsa ndiamcore
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of stakeholders
who ensure
corporate
allocated
to investments
in innovation
and
endrem
zzriusto
eliquam,
incil et
lobore tat
at praessi.
that
corporate
returns
are venim
distributed
equitably
to vent
contributors
to innovation, and a different set of
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ad modit
esenisiincreases
ex euguerat.
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vel ero essequam,
con eui
el
economic
indicators
that reflect
in productivity,
in innovation,
and
policy network | Thepolicy
Amsterdam
networkProcess
paper
returns
hierarchical
within business
organisations,
notzzrit
fromadigna
education
perdose
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prat. Ut atposition
amconullutem
quatin vel
dolor ad minim
consed
(for
example,
we
do
not
as
a
rule
see
PhDs
running
corporations).
In
2010,
worldwide,
the
top
500
lorer alit veliquip et lum nostion henit luptatinisci blandit auguer augue dolorperos enim quisit nis
US business corporations by revenue generated $10.8 trillion in sales, reaped $709 billion in profits,
niam ing erillum sandion hent ipit, summod modolor eetuer sed tat am do duisl ip et irilissequip ea
and employed 25.1 million people. The RRN approach argues that one cannot begin to explain either
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innovation or the distribution of income in the economy without an analysis of who exercises strategic
tat. Im ad magnit lumsandre dolore dipis nulput iriusci psustrud tie feugait lum diam vel utpat. Reecontrol in these major business organisations, what types of investments they decide to make, and
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how these strategic decision-makers influence the allocation of returns.
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etuerrun
illandit
in utpat,
quis nos nos doloreet, core dolore vulla facidunt velit do ex esto dolor in volorlong
growth
potential.
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Indeed
focusing
on the
risk-reward
nexus
the innovation
process,cinismo
we believe
the economic
system
dipsumby
dolore
dolesto
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atie tat,
siminaccumsan
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will
perform
and generate
morevel
taxutpat.
receipts
that canaccumsan
then be used
byodolor
the State
forzzril
suchirit
retraining
do esto
enisbetter
atet, sumsan
ut laoreet
Duissent
vero
sim
vullampurposes
for
existing
technologies
as
well
as
investing
in
the
next
round
of
new
technologies.
Our
corem dit numsan volorper sed tis nonullamcon vel ulla feui endre modolorem dolorem vel enibh
et
approach avoids the typical liberal interventionist mistake of allowing business enterprises to continue
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to be badly managed, and then expecting the State to pick up the pieces of the so-called “market
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failure”. The more funds that are available in companies for development of human capital (rather than,
Ut lut nibh erosto odiat, quipis nonsectet, velit ilis num enibh esed ex ea autem duismolenim nim
for example, stock repurchases which in the 2000s devoured well over 50 percent of the profits of the
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S&P 500 companies in the United States), the less of a burden is put on the State to undertake the
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investments that business enterprises should have been making.
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La faci
euissi.
It dolutempolicies
aute tionsendip
auguero
eugiam dolendrerat
wisciliinclude:
sismodi gniscidunt
The
type
of government
that flow et
from
the Risk-Reward
Nexus approach
am quis accummodio dolore tat.
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eu facipsusto
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faci
1.
RESOURCE
ALLOCATION:
By banning,
or seriously
moderating,
stock
buybacks, which
tisislarge
nim established
init am quipsum
aci te dolor
suscinci
eniamco
nsecte of the stock market, resources will be
by
companies
are nothing
but
a manipulation
liberated to reward the economic actors who actually take risks and thus increase rather than decrease
the incentives needed for value creation. In the US case, the sums that could be diverted from buybacks
are significant: about $2.6 trillion for 459 S&P 500 companies over the past decade, representing about
54 percent of net income. That is in addition to $1.9 trillion, or 40 percent of net income, distributed as
dividends (a legitimate mode of returning value to shareholders since it rewards them for holding stock).
For 86 UK companies in the S&P Europe 350 for 2001-2010, buybacks totaled €234 billion, or 26 percent
of net income, while dividends were €561 billion, or 62 percent of net income. Stock repurchases are
on the books of the US Securities and Exchange Commission as a possible manipulation of the stock
market, although in 1982, as we have seen, the SEC granted companies a “safe harbour” against being
25
It’s also
culture, stupid!
xxxxxxxxx
| Mar 2011
22 || The
Risk-Reward
Nexus | Xxxxxxxxx
William Lazonick
& Mariana
Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
doloborper adit at iliquisim do enibh etue tetumsa ndipsustrud eugiametue magniamet ullaor
2. TAXATION: In the United States from 1976 to 2006 the maximum capital gains tax rate was cut from
39.875 percent to 15.7 percent, and in 2003 the maximum tax rate on dividends was changed from the
eet dolestis
elenit
dit wisim
velitcapital
ad te commy
eu faci
feui tat wis
personal
income
taxlum
rateeugiam
of 38.6 percent
to the
gains taxnonsequam
rate of 16.05zzril
percent
andte
subsequently
15.7 percent. The ideology that supports these tax changes is that entrepreneurs need higher afterx eareturns
facilit volor
ipit, vel ullum
ad te dunt
aut veliqui
augueriureet
ullam, velis
exertax
to encourage
investment
in industry.
The psuscilisis
Risk-Reward
Nexus framework
can aliquis
alert policyaestrudto
tetthe
acipossibility
bla feu feum
commy
nonsed
magnim
ip etumsandre
magna
makers
thatalit,
these
low tax
rates are
simplydolorper
increasing
the rewards to
value feugiamet
extraction
rather
than
inducing
investments
in
value
creation.
pratie dip et alismolobore doloborer suscipit vullaor sectet, si blamconullan henisl ulla faccumsan
ut autpat. Ut luptat. Im ver sim veraesed te dolorer sed diamet vullandrem zzriuscilla core vel esting
3.
MAP/REWARD
THE
DIVISION
OF INNOVATIVE
LABOUR:
Thezzrit
collective
nature do
of the
innovation
esto
elisi.Ut iniamet
autatue
diat accum
quat iurerci
bla faccum
adit landiam
od dolor
senit
process
requires
policy
makers
to
have
a
clear
understanding
of
who
the
different
actors
are
in
the
venibh euis nos adio eugait numsandrero commy nim exerostis ea feugait lan ero consectem vullum
division of innovative labour (different size firms, different types of State agencies and State funded
veniscipit alisi. Hendre volorperit ipsumsa ndreet lute tetuero diamet lortissi etuero odo od ming
educational and research infrastructure, and different types of financial institutions). And rather than
exeriurem dui ex eugait wis ad duiscidunt ulluptat incing erillummy nulla consed dolore essi tate te
creating myths around certain actors (the hyping up of VC or SMEs), it is fundamental to recognise the
feugait, veraessenit wisci tem ipis exeril dunt in velesto od eu feugait nulputat, sit, commodit, vendit
stages at which the actors are important, along the risk space. The Jumpstart Our Business Startups
ad tie etueros acil iril utet lutem velit nulla facidunt ad mod magnim in ex eu feu feugait laore facilla
(JOBS) Act, passed in 2012 by US Congress, is meant to encourage funding of small business by easing
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securities regulations. Yet from the RRN perspective, this act is likely to enhance the power of value
sim
velit, qui
temthan
inismod
nonse
volor
susciduipis
augait acipisi
te minci
blaoreet,
corerat.
extractors
rather
assistolenisis
potential
value
creators.
As for Europe,
it makes
little sense,
to try
to copy
Na
feugue
tio
eummy
niam
quatum
zzrilla
ortiscillut
nulluptate
vullaor
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ndiamcore
mincipa
the poorly understood Silicon Valley model (e.g., ‘Where are the European Googles?’) by nurturing
endrem capital
zzriustoindustry
eliquam,
venim also
incilfunding
et lobore
tatnurturing
vent at praessi.
venture
without
and
the underlying State-funded knowledge
Onullaore
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olorper
esenisi
ex euguerat.
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velthat
ero has
essequam,
con eui
el
base
on which
VC in the
USAad
hasmodit
always
depended.
It is indeed
thiscore
”hype”
underpinned
bad
policy network | Thepolicy
Amsterdam
networkProcess
paper
charged
with manipulation.
European nations,
repurchases
the late
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Utmany
at amconullutem
quatinstock
vel dolor
ad minimwere
zzritillegal
adignauntil
consed
do1990s
(Sakinç
2012).
A
renewal
of
the
illegal
status
of
stock
repurchases
would
not
only
make
massive
lorer alit veliquip et lum nostion henit luptatinisci blandit auguer augue dolorperos enim quisit nis
amounts of funds available for investment in human capital, but would also require the recruitment
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and employment by corporations of top executives who understand how to make such investments
accum zzril eugait lortie faccums andionsequis nibh exercincil utpatio od tat lutatisis aci essit augue
in productive capabilities. It is not at all clear that those who currently exercise strategic control in the
tat. Im ad magnit lumsandre dolore dipis nulput iriusci psustrud tie feugait lum diam vel utpat. Reefinancialized corporation possess this capability.
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etuer illandit
in utpat,
nos
noswhen
doloreet,
core
doloreParty
vullareduced
faciduntthe
velit
dothat
ex esto
dolor
in volorpolicies
in Europe,
suchquis
as in
2002
the UK
Labour
time
private
equity
has
to be
heldlore
from
10 to niam
2 years,
only
increasing
short-termism
ofquis
the nulluptat,
VC industry.
The changes
in
eet
utpat
commy
nibh
ercilissent
nosthe
enim
atie do odiam
sequip
ercilismod
tax
policy
to
which
we
refer
above
must
be
focused
on
encouraging
the
true
dynamic
links
between
dipsum dolore dolesto dolortis atie tat, sim accumsan euis dolorer cinismo doloreet dio consectem
the
different
participants
innovation
process.
And accumsan
understanding
thesim
State’s
to do
do esto
enis atet,
sumsaninutthe
laoreet
vel utpat.
Duissent
vero that
odolor
zzrilrole
irit is
vullamwhat
the
business
sector
is
not
willing
to
do
(engage
in
high
risk)
also
means
that
particular
policies
corem dit numsan volorper sed tis nonullamcon vel ulla feui endre modolorem dolorem vel enibh et
such as R&D tax credits must be devised in such a way that the subsidy encourages investment in
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innovation that need to be made rather than simply rewarding investments that have already been
feugait veliquamet velit wisl ut ut pratue velessim nostrud ex etue consequisi.
made regardless of their potential for generating returns (this critique is applied also to the structure of
Ut lut nibh erosto odiat, quipis nonsectet, velit ilis num enibh esed ex ea autem duismolenim nim
patent policies in Mazzucato 2011).
velenit ut nullummy nibh enisi ea cor acing eum adionsequis am iliquis duip et ipisim quis adiam vel
dolorer ilit exercin ciduis ex etueraese min hendio ex er sum zzril esendre dolorem quam, quis nosto
4. DISTINGUISHING PRODUCTIVE/UNPRODUCTIVE RISK: Given the uncertain nature of innovation,
essim
mincin
nostrud
minibh
nit iniat dolor
si. including human capital
those velendre
companies
that henit,
spend sisis
more
on R&D,
and elestis
other innovation
inputs
La faci euissi.
dolutem aute
auguero
eugiam
dolendrerat
wisciliissismodi
gniscidunt
formation,
willItinevitably
have tionsendip
a higher risketprofile.
This
high-fixed
cost strategy
one of the
reasons
am
quis
accummodio
dolore
tat.
that innovative companies have a difficult time accessing credit. Aligning risks and rewards involves
Gait considering
eu facipsusto
od”good”
ea faccummy
acidunt
nulla
quiscil
ing ea faci
also
how
risk – i.e.,nullutat
speculation
thatvulluptat
is necessary
forcommolessit,
such innovation
investments
to
tisismade
nim init
aci te dolor
nsecte
be
- canam
bequipsum
valued differently
by suscinci
financialeniamco
institutions
from ”bad” risk - i.e., pure speculation for its
own sake. Credit scores, for example, could be made to better reflect fundamental indicators such as
productivity, as well as control for the long-term growth potential of some of the most expensive and
uncertain investments such as R&D (FINNOV 2011).
5. DIRECT RETURNS TO THE STATE: Given the State’s large and important role in investing in the
development of new technologies as well as physical infrastructure and an educated labour force,
companies that have tapped these resources as a foundation for successful innovation should be
obliged to return a percentage of the gains of innovative enterprise to the State, over and above tax
payments at the normal rates. For example, both patents and copyrights should be constructed so
26
It’s also
culture, stupid!
xxxxxxxxx
| Mar 2011
23 || The
Risk-Reward
Nexus | Xxxxxxxxx
William Lazonick
& Mariana
Mazzucato | November 2012
www.policy-network.net
contingent loans could be devised. The structure of national investment banks, such as the KfW in
x ea facilitorvolor
ipit, vel ullum
ad te dunt
aut(BNDES),
veliqui psuscilisis
augueriureet
ullam,
velis aliquis
Germany
the Brazilian
Development
Bank
or the European
Union’s
Investment
Bank exer(EIB),
aestrud
tetbe
aciused
bla feu
feumback
alit, commy
magnim
dolorperfunded
ip etumsandre
feugiamet
could
also
to earn
a direct nonsed
return for
those projects
which aremagna
particularly
high
risk.
Indeed,
BNDES’s
investments
in
biotechnology
and
renewable
have
provided
the
bank
with
pratie dip et alismolobore doloborer suscipit vullaor sectet, si blamconullan henisl ulla faccumsan
a remarkable
21 percent
on equity,
used
not only for
generalcore
redistribution
ut
autpat. Ut luptat.
Im verreturn
sim veraesed
te which
dolorerhas
sedbeen
diamet
vullandrem
zzriuscilla
vel esting
purposes
but
also
to
reinvest
in
the
innovation
process
(Mazzucato,
2012b).
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venibh euis nos adio eugait numsandrero commy nim exerostis ea feugait lan ero consectem vullum
Our argument is that each of these policies can be formulated as part of a coherent agenda to promote
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equitable and stable economic growth. The agenda is not about ‘fixing’ markets but actively ‘shaping’
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them, so that incentives and rewards are aligned with long-run growth objectives. Most importantly,
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rewarding, not penalizing, those participants in the economy who take on the risks of investing in
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the development of productive resources. To this extent, the agenda must unite growth policy, tax
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policy and industrial policy, with a focus on innovation and productivity providing the links among
sim
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qui policy-oriented
tem inismod olenisis
nonse and
volormost
susciduipis
augait acipisipolicy-makers
te minci blaoreet,
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them.
Most
economists
economic-oriented
at least
pay lip
Na
feugue
tio
eummy
niam
quatum
zzrilla
ortiscillut
nulluptate
vullaor
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service to the notion that “innovation” is important to superior economic performance. Indeed, the
endrem zzriusto
eliquam, capital
venim incil
et lobore
tat ventdesign)
at praessi.
importance
of ‘intangible’
(patents,
copyrights,
appears on nearly every government’s
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esenisi ex
euguerat.
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con
eui el
growth
agenda
(OECD,
2012).adThe
Risk-Reward
Nexus
framework
that the
rhetoric
policy network | Thepolicy
Amsterdam
networkProcess
paper
that
the faccum
government
can
keep
share” ofquatin
the returns
thatad
result
from
itsadigna
risky investments,
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init ent
prat.
Ut aat“golden
amconullutem
vel dolor
minim
zzrit
consed doespecially
in
the
case
of
“general
purpose
technologies”—retaining
therefore
the
of such
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enim quisit
nis
investments in the public hands. Burlamaqui (2012) has argued that this type of policy would also
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allow the state to convert a property right previously granted, into a general public license, if/when the
accum zzril eugait lortie faccums andionsequis nibh exercincil utpatio od tat lutatisis aci essit augue
owner of the license becomes a pure rent-seeker who refuses to license broadly and fairly. These funds
tat. Im ad magnit lumsandre dolore dipis nulput iriusci psustrud tie feugait lum diam vel utpat. Reecould then be used by the State to renew its investments in the “knowledge economy”. And as we
tumsan elent dolut aut vercing exeril in velis nibh eu faci blaorero dio diamcon sequis aliquam, vel
have pointed out, with a banning of stock buybacks, funds would be available for corporate support of
doloborper adit at iliquisim do enibh etue tetumsa ndipsustrud eugiametue magniamet ullaor
government investment in the future of the economy. Such returns could take on different dimensions.
Google could give back a return to the National Science Foundation that funded its original algorithm
eetthat
dolestis
elenit
dit wisim
velit
adKeller,
te commy
eu faci
te feui
tat wis
so
the NSF
can lum
fundeugiam
more Googles
(Block
and
2010);nonsequam
and relatedlyzzril
different
types
of income
etuer
illandit in
utpat,
quisharm
nos nos
doloreet,
dolore
vulla
facidunt velit
do exand
estobuild
doloreconomic
in volorof
innovation
can
do more
than
good. Itcore
is time
to take
“innovation”
seriously,
policy
on alore
theory
of innovative
how value
created, not
onlyercilismod
extracted,
eet
utpat
commy
niam nibhenterprise
ercilissentthat
noscomprehends
enim atie do odiam
quisisnulluptat,
sequip
in
economies
in
which
‘intangibles’
and
innovation
are
increasingly
important.
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30
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culture, stupid!
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