Sandy Brian Hager
Biographic Data
| ID | 297862 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sandy Brian Hager |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sandy Brian |
| FAMILY NAME | Hager |
| SIGNATURE | HAGER S B |
| AFFILIATIONS | City, University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1205-3623 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 80 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 13 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Rentiership and intellectual monopoly in contemporary capitalism
In recent years, the concepts of rentiership and intellectual monopoly have gained prominence in discussions about the weakening link between corporate profitability and capital investment in high income countries. However, there have been few if any attempts to construct measures for rentiership and intellectual monopoly using firm-level financial data. The absence of such work, we argue, is symptomatic of challenges in delineating what qualifie…
The shifting fortunes of corporate psychedelia
This article traces the shifting fortunes of for-profit psychedelic medicine through two phases: a boom from 2016 to late 2021, followed by a bust that continued through late 2024. It argues that the forces driving this cycle are best understood through the concept of capitalization, which links present valuations to investor expectations about future earnings. Engaging the capital-as-power framework, the article situates psychedelic companies wi…
After the boom
The crisis of 2008 was a watershed event for the study of finance and society. There was the boom in financial markets that came to a head with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and there was the boom in financial scholarship that followed in its wake. But what comes after this second boom? After more than a decade of rapid expansion under the shadow of 2008, what comes next for the new finance studies? What are the emerging debates that matter mo…
Introduction
How do we theorize and analyze the structural power of finance when global capitalism itself undergoes constant and profound structural transformation? The literature continues to assume that the source of financial structural power is its unique ability to provide credit to the real economy, playing a crucial role in meeting the investment imperative. But recent research documents that most financial market activities no longer facilitate produc…
The Great Debt Divergence and its Implications for the Covid-19 Crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified longstanding concerns about mounting levels of corporate debt in the United States. This article places the current conjuncture in its historical context, analysing corporate indebtedness against the backdrop of increasing corporate concentration. Theorising leverage as a form of power, we find that the leverage of large non-financial firms increased in recent decades, while their debt servicing burdens decreas…
Commodity traders in a storm
Commodity trading firms occupy a central position in global supply chains and their activities have been associated with financial instability, social upheaval and manifold forms of ecological devastation. This paper examines these companies in the context of debates regarding corporate financialization. We find that since the 2003–2011 commodity boom, trading firms have become less financialized in terms of the source of their profits as they ha…
Varieties of top incomes
Focusing on the advanced political economies, this article critically reviews the recent scholarship on the evolution of top incomes over the past few decades. The existing literature shows that the determination of top incomes is complex, multifaceted and bound up with factors associated with both politics and economics. Technological change and globalization are vital sources of change in contemporary capitalism, but the continued diversity in …
The Tax Advantage of Big Business
Corporate concentration in the United States has been on the rise in recent years, sparking a heated debate about its causes, consequences, and potential remedies. This article examines a facet of public policy that has been neglected in the debate: corporate taxation. Developing the first empirical mapping of the effective tax rates of nonfinancial corporations disaggregated by size and broken down by jurisdiction, the article reveals a striking…
Financial Crisis, Inequality, and Capitalist Diversity
The relationship between inequality and financial instability has become a thriving topic of research in heterodox political economy. This article offers the first critical engagement with one framework within this wider literature: the Capital as Power (CasP) model of the stock market developed by Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan. Specifically, we extend the CasP model to other advanced capitalist countries, including Germany, France, the Un…
A global bond
This article offers new theoretical and empirical insights to explain the resilience of US Treasury securities as the world’s premier safe or “risk-free” asset. The standard explanation of resilience emphasizes the relative safety of US Treasuries due to a shortage of safe assets in the global political economy. The analysis here goes beyond the standard explanation to highlight the importance of domestic politics in reinforcing the safe status o…
Corporate ownership of the public debt
In various writings Karl Marx made references to an ‘aristocracy of finance’ in Western Europe and the USA that dominated ownership of the public debt. Drawing on original research, this article offers the first comprehensive analysis of public debt ownership within the US corporate sector. The research shows that over the past three decades, and especially in the context of the current crisis, a new aristocracy of finance has emerged, as holding…
What Happened to the Bondholding Class? Public Debt, Power and the Top One Per Cent
In 1887 Henry Carter Adams produced a study demonstrating that the ownership of government bonds was heavily concentrated in the hands of a 'bondholding class' that lent to and, in Adams's view, controlled the government like dominant shareholders control a corporation. The interests of this bondholding class clashed with the interests of the masses, whose burdensome taxes financed the interest payments on government bonds. Since the late ninetee…
The social purpose of new governance
What Happened to the Bondholding Class? Public Debt, Power and the Top One Per Cent
In 1887 Henry Carter Adams produced a study demonstrating that the ownership of government bonds was heavily concentrated in the hands of a 'bondholding class' that lent to and, in Adams's view, controlled the government like dominant shareholders control a corporation. The interests of this bondholding class clashed with the interests of the masses, whose burdensome taxes financed the interest payments on government bonds. Since the late ninetee…
Introduction
How do we theorize and analyze the structural power of finance when global capitalism itself undergoes constant and profound structural transformation? The literature continues to assume that the source of financial structural power is its unique ability to provide credit to the real economy, playing a crucial role in meeting the investment imperative. But recent research documents that most financial market activities no longer facilitate produc…
Commodity traders in a storm
Commodity trading firms occupy a central position in global supply chains and their activities have been associated with financial instability, social upheaval and manifold forms of ecological devastation. This paper examines these companies in the context of debates regarding corporate financialization. We find that since the 2003–2011 commodity boom, trading firms have become less financialized in terms of the source of their profits as they ha…
The Great Debt Divergence and its Implications for the Covid-19 Crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified longstanding concerns about mounting levels of corporate debt in the United States. This article places the current conjuncture in its historical context, analysing corporate indebtedness against the backdrop of increasing corporate concentration. Theorising leverage as a form of power, we find that the leverage of large non-financial firms increased in recent decades, while their debt servicing burdens decreas…
The Tax Advantage of Big Business
Corporate concentration in the United States has been on the rise in recent years, sparking a heated debate about its causes, consequences, and potential remedies. This article examines a facet of public policy that has been neglected in the debate: corporate taxation. Developing the first empirical mapping of the effective tax rates of nonfinancial corporations disaggregated by size and broken down by jurisdiction, the article reveals a striking…
Corporate ownership of the public debt
In various writings Karl Marx made references to an ‘aristocracy of finance’ in Western Europe and the USA that dominated ownership of the public debt. Drawing on original research, this article offers the first comprehensive analysis of public debt ownership within the US corporate sector. The research shows that over the past three decades, and especially in the context of the current crisis, a new aristocracy of finance has emerged, as holding…
The social purpose of new governance
After the boom
The crisis of 2008 was a watershed event for the study of finance and society. There was the boom in financial markets that came to a head with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and there was the boom in financial scholarship that followed in its wake. But what comes after this second boom? After more than a decade of rapid expansion under the shadow of 2008, what comes next for the new finance studies? What are the emerging debates that matter mo…
Varieties of top incomes
Focusing on the advanced political economies, this article critically reviews the recent scholarship on the evolution of top incomes over the past few decades. The existing literature shows that the determination of top incomes is complex, multifaceted and bound up with factors associated with both politics and economics. Technological change and globalization are vital sources of change in contemporary capitalism, but the continued diversity in …
Financial Crisis, Inequality, and Capitalist Diversity
The relationship between inequality and financial instability has become a thriving topic of research in heterodox political economy. This article offers the first critical engagement with one framework within this wider literature: the Capital as Power (CasP) model of the stock market developed by Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan. Specifically, we extend the CasP model to other advanced capitalist countries, including Germany, France, the Un…
A global bond
This article offers new theoretical and empirical insights to explain the resilience of US Treasury securities as the world’s premier safe or “risk-free” asset. The standard explanation of resilience emphasizes the relative safety of US Treasuries due to a shortage of safe assets in the global political economy. The analysis here goes beyond the standard explanation to highlight the importance of domestic politics in reinforcing the safe status o…
The social purpose of new governance
What Happened to the Bondholding Class? Public Debt, Power and the Top One Per Cent
In 1887 Henry Carter Adams produced a study demonstrating that the ownership of government bonds was heavily concentrated in the hands of a 'bondholding class' that lent to and, in Adams's view, controlled the government like dominant shareholders control a corporation. The interests of this bondholding class clashed with the interests of the masses, whose burdensome taxes financed the interest payments on government bonds. Since the late ninetee…
Corporate ownership of the public debt
In various writings Karl Marx made references to an ‘aristocracy of finance’ in Western Europe and the USA that dominated ownership of the public debt. Drawing on original research, this article offers the first comprehensive analysis of public debt ownership within the US corporate sector. The research shows that over the past three decades, and especially in the context of the current crisis, a new aristocracy of finance has emerged, as holding…
A global bond
This article offers new theoretical and empirical insights to explain the resilience of US Treasury securities as the world’s premier safe or “risk-free” asset. The standard explanation of resilience emphasizes the relative safety of US Treasuries due to a shortage of safe assets in the global political economy. The analysis here goes beyond the standard explanation to highlight the importance of domestic politics in reinforcing the safe status o…
Financial Crisis, Inequality, and Capitalist Diversity
The relationship between inequality and financial instability has become a thriving topic of research in heterodox political economy. This article offers the first critical engagement with one framework within this wider literature: the Capital as Power (CasP) model of the stock market developed by Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan. Specifically, we extend the CasP model to other advanced capitalist countries, including Germany, France, the Un…
The Tax Advantage of Big Business
Corporate concentration in the United States has been on the rise in recent years, sparking a heated debate about its causes, consequences, and potential remedies. This article examines a facet of public policy that has been neglected in the debate: corporate taxation. Developing the first empirical mapping of the effective tax rates of nonfinancial corporations disaggregated by size and broken down by jurisdiction, the article reveals a striking…
The Great Debt Divergence and its Implications for the Covid-19 Crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified longstanding concerns about mounting levels of corporate debt in the United States. This article places the current conjuncture in its historical context, analysing corporate indebtedness against the backdrop of increasing corporate concentration. Theorising leverage as a form of power, we find that the leverage of large non-financial firms increased in recent decades, while their debt servicing burdens decreas…
Commodity traders in a storm
Commodity trading firms occupy a central position in global supply chains and their activities have been associated with financial instability, social upheaval and manifold forms of ecological devastation. This paper examines these companies in the context of debates regarding corporate financialization. We find that since the 2003–2011 commodity boom, trading firms have become less financialized in terms of the source of their profits as they ha…
Varieties of top incomes
Focusing on the advanced political economies, this article critically reviews the recent scholarship on the evolution of top incomes over the past few decades. The existing literature shows that the determination of top incomes is complex, multifaceted and bound up with factors associated with both politics and economics. Technological change and globalization are vital sources of change in contemporary capitalism, but the continued diversity in …
After the boom
The crisis of 2008 was a watershed event for the study of finance and society. There was the boom in financial markets that came to a head with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and there was the boom in financial scholarship that followed in its wake. But what comes after this second boom? After more than a decade of rapid expansion under the shadow of 2008, what comes next for the new finance studies? What are the emerging debates that matter mo…
Introduction
How do we theorize and analyze the structural power of finance when global capitalism itself undergoes constant and profound structural transformation? The literature continues to assume that the source of financial structural power is its unique ability to provide credit to the real economy, playing a crucial role in meeting the investment imperative. But recent research documents that most financial market activities no longer facilitate produc…
Rentiership and intellectual monopoly in contemporary capitalism
In recent years, the concepts of rentiership and intellectual monopoly have gained prominence in discussions about the weakening link between corporate profitability and capital investment in high income countries. However, there have been few if any attempts to construct measures for rentiership and intellectual monopoly using firm-level financial data. The absence of such work, we argue, is symptomatic of challenges in delineating what qualifie…
The shifting fortunes of corporate psychedelia
This article traces the shifting fortunes of for-profit psychedelic medicine through two phases: a boom from 2016 to late 2021, followed by a bust that continued through late 2024. It argues that the forces driving this cycle are best understood through the concept of capitalization, which links present valuations to investor expectations about future earnings. Engaging the capital-as-power framework, the article situates psychedelic companies wi…
Economics (10 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (10 works) · Political science (8 works) · Business (6 works) · Economic Theory and Policy (6 works) · Finance (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Finance (5 works) · Financialization (5 works) · Law (5 works)