How ‘shareholder value’ became a Wall Street mantra

CEOs have rarely felt the downside. (Image: Getty)

Sat, 13 Apr 2024

By Adrian Wooldridge Michael Jensen, who died on April 2, did as much as any single thinker to shape modern financial capitalism, particularly as it is practised in the Anglo-Saxon world. To his critics, he was the high priest of the greed-is-good era who justified exorbitant executive pay and vulture capitalism: Gordon Gekko with a doctorate. To his admirers, he was the surgeon who gave Anglo-Saxon capitalism a new lease of life by slicing off the fat, removing the malignant tumours and prescribing a strict exercise regime.Nobody can...

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