Nuevo poder financiero y modelo de empresa: una fuente de fragilidad del sistema

Abstract

In the United States, a new financial power has affirmed itself and resulted in the redefinition of power relationships within the financial sector. This power was able to consolidate and affirm itself thanks to the institutional changes marking the American economy in the mid-1970's, channeling enormous flows of retirement savings into the financial markets. It is primarily incarnated by the institutional investors with their new demands and claims to ownership rights. It contributed to forming a specific business model, in terms of both its economic rationality and internal organization, on the basis of the privileged search for optimized profitability of capital, incarnated by the enhancement of stock value. It was aided in this by «passers» who are close to or come from financial circles, professionals in expertise and advice. The resulting corporate model is characterized by an endogenous fragility: it is very strongly correlated to stock market performance and to the operation of financial markets and causes instability in the more or less long-term. Among others, this new financial power has proven rather inefficient in the area of capital allocation, given the exorbitant cost of raising capital on financial markets which has been especially profitable to the large Wall Street firms. It has also led to a strongly asymmetrical redistribution of wealth in favor of corporate management.