Shareholders and Stakeholders

Producing high technology output and supplying sophisticated services often involves costly investment in industry-specific skills. But the threat of poaching means that it is the individual 'stakeholder', not the firm, who must bear the cost. We investigate various mechanisms for funding human capital investment in an industry equilibrium framework where capital market imperfections would (in the absence of intervention) result in underinvestment. The main result is that government provision of loan guarantees (conditional on no-bankruptcy) leads to wage hikes which raises profits in a socially inefficient manner: income contingent loans and levy subsidy schemes, meanwhile, can result in a socially efficient outcome. Recent analysis of investment under uncertainty has stressed the irreversible commitment that this may involve - and the value of waiting before committing or withdrawing resources, Dixit and Pindyck (1994). The investment considered is usually in physical capital - oil rigs, for example - and the decision makers are the shareholders who own equity capital, or their delegates. But in many high technology and service industries investments of a less tangible nature are also required - those in human skills. If they are costly to acquire and are not transferable outside the industry, then this will also involve irreversible decisions under uncertainty

Business · Capital (architecture · Corporate governance · Economics · Human capital · Market economy · Monetary economics · Shareholder · Capital Investment and Risk Analysis · Economic Growth and Productivity · Economic theories and models · Finance

• Investment in Human Capital

  Gary S Becker•Journal of Political Economy•1962

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• The Future of the Welfare State

  Dennis J Snower•The Economic Journal•1993

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• Acquiring Skills

  Dan A Black, Alison L Booth et al.•Industrial and Labor Relations…•1997

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