Finance capital, jobs and restructuring corporate ownership in the United States

Abstract

Finance capital, jobs and restructuring corporate ownership in the United States

David Peetz & Georgina Murray Griffith University

We analyse data on ownership, global employment growth, assets and sale/revenue amongst the 221 largest US industrial corporations (by market capitalisation) to consider their patterns of ownership and how the restructuring of that ownership during the financial crisis may have affected the stability, concentration and composition of finance capital and changes in employment at the firm level. We found that instability associated with the global financial crisis created new patterns of dominance in finance capital, as banks lost their leading position, though less dramatically than some may have expected. We found strong evidence of high and increasing concentration of the ownership and control of leading industrial corporations by leading finance capital firms. Those in the most powerful positions in finance capital during periods of crisis were able to maintain their relative power, despite volatility elsewhere. And we found that employment growth was negatively linked to ownership instability and to ownership by banks in particular.