The Pandemic and Shareholder Value

Abstract

Shareholder value has driven corporate governance in North America for over a century. In the wake of significant financial crises and growing inequalities, corporate America decided in 2019 to embrace a more egalitarian model, in which all stakeholders matter equally. The brutal pandemic that wreaked havoc in the first half of 2020 exposed a startling disconnect between the real economy and the stock market. This disconnect is due to a gap between explicit and implicit corporate governance. While officially corporate America wants to convert to a new doctrine, the pandemic has shown that shareholder capitalism has remained the default model. Good intentions and official declarations are not enough in a system that has been specifically designed to serve the shareholders. If stakeholder capitalism is to succeed, it needs a clear normative content and perhaps a more radical reform of institutions and regulation.