Shareholder Value Orientation, Distribution And Growth—Short‐ And Medium‐Run Effects In A Kaleckian Model

We discuss the effects of rising shareholder power on distribution and capital accumulation in a Kaleckian model. In the short run, increasing shareholder power may have either positive (‘finance‐led’), negative (‘normal’) or ‘intermediate’ (‘profits without investment’) effects on capacity utilization, profits and capital accumulation. In the medium run, the positive (‘finance‐led’) effects may be maintained in a stable regime under very special conditions, whereas the negative (‘normal’) and the ‘intermediate’ (‘profits without investment’) effects turn into disequilibrium processes with falling rates of capital accumulation and rising outside finance–capital ratios. Therefore, this process gives rise to a ‘paradox of outside finance’.