PERC’s Sahil Jai Dutta is joined by Dr Sandy Brian Hager (City, University of London) to discuss the political economy of the corporation. He is the author of the book Public Debt, Inequality, and Power: The Making of a Modern Debt State (2016) published by University of California Press. The conversation spans across the topics of ownership and the politics of public debt, the power of large banks in the US, and his most recent work exploring what drives long-term shifts in the stock markets in the ‘advanced’ economies.

Research discussed:

Bichler & Nitzan [2012] – Capital as power: Toward a new cosmology of capitalism – Introduction to the Capital as Power model.

Baines & Hager [2020] – Financial Crisis, Inequality, and Capitalist Diversity: A Critique of the Capital as Power Model of the Stock Market (£) – Examines how the Capital as Power model fits across advanced economies.

Hager [2020] –Varieties of top incomes? (£) – Examines the efficacy of different policy responses to inequality.

Common Wealth [2020] – Commoning the company – Examines shareholder power in the UK and options for company reform after Covid-19.

Dutta & Knafo [2020] – The myth of shareholder primacy – Questions the origins of shareholder power.