By William LAZONICK and Öner TULUM This perspective/prospectus essay, written for the Institute for New Economic Thinking, summarizes a body of knowledge growing out of an ongoing research collaboration between the Academic-Industry Research Network (AIRnet) and the Bentley University Center…
AIR ANALYSIS
Comments on economic issues and developments published by AIR researchers and affiliates
Investing in Innovation: Confronting Predatory Value Extraction in the U.S. Corporation
ABSTRACT “Sustainable prosperity” denotes an economy that generates stable and equitable growth for a large and growing middle class. From the 1940s into the 1970s, the United States appeared to be on a trajectory of sustainable prosperity, especially for white-male…
International workshop series on the German system of co-determination organized by WZB, theAIRnet, and IGZA
Together with the Berlin Social Science Center (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung-WZB), the Academic-Industry Research Network (theAIRnet), and the Institute for the History and Future of Work (Institut für die Geschichte und Zukunft der Arbeit-IGZA) organized the German-American workshop series “The…
A major transparency in share buybacks
…After a brief pandemic respite, share buybacks are back with a vengeance. In the third quarter of 2021, S&P 500 companies spent a record $235 billion on buybacks, adding to the $6.3 trillion spent on stock repurchases in the decade before the pandemic….
INET-AIR COVID VACCINE PROJECT
Mass-Producing COVID-19 Vaccines: Capacity, Scale, and Control In collaboration with the Institute for New Economics Thinking (INET), the AIR research team has embarked on a new research project (INET-AIR COVID VACCINE PROJECT) to study and report on the rollout of…
‘Shareholder value’ versus the public good: the case of Germany
“With uncertainty around the world about how and when the coronavirus outbreak will decelerate, whole business sectors have been affected by lockdowns and are facing ruin. In Germany, more than 750,000 companies have put over 12 million employees on reduced working…
Think Big Pharma Won’t Profiteer in the Race to Treat Coronavirus? Think Again.
“In a 2019 Gallup poll, Big Pharma ranked as the most disliked industry in America. Rosie Collington, a graduate student at the University of Copenhagen and a researcher at the Academic-Industry Research Network, knows why: She has studied how major insulin manufacturing…
With working Americans’ survival at stake, the US is bailing out the richest
“Amid a humanitarian crisis compounded by mass layoffs and collapsing economic activity, the last course our legislators should be following is the one they appear to be on right now: bailing out shareholders and executives who, while enriching themselves, spent…
CEOs Gorged on Buybacks for Years. Now They Want Bailouts.
“Congress is poised to impose restrictions on stock buybacks as a part of the multi-trillion-dollar recovery package that is being voted on this week. To understand why those limits are necessary, look no further than the airline industry, which is being singled…
Top Economist: Instead of Basic Income, Let’s Keep People Working Productively During the Crisis
“As the pandemic rages, everyone is scrambling to figure out how to protect people getting economically pummeled. Americans may soon get a cash injection to help them fight the economic devastation of Covid-19 as part of a stimulus bill agreed…