Ep15 "Shareholder vs. Stakeholder Capitalism" with Alex Edmans

Businesses often prioritize shareholder interests to make profit. But this can lead to short-sighted decisions that fail to benefit other stakeholders… right?
In this episode of All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen - and guest Alex Edmans - ask that very question and provide some surprising answers. Whose interests are better aligned with the long-term health of a business: external stakeholders or internal shareholders?
Alex Edmans is a finance professor at the London Business School. He has written a book on the topic of shareholder versus stakeholder capitalism called “Grow The Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit.”
Submit your questions to the show here: bit.ly/AllElse...
Find All Else Equal on the web: www.gsb.stanfo...

[@buddylovely]

Shareholders are not the "ultimate owners of the business" according to legal scholars (See Lynn Stout 2012). Does Alex not know this basic fact or does he think they are not legal owners, but still owners? If so, he should explain this.

[@CJ-gv6bq]

Another part of this conversation is the fact that stakeholder capitalism aka Environmental, Social, and Governence was set up as a metric to enforce realization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. So all production is controlled my UN and World Economic Forum stakeholders. This means that the United Nations in partnership with governments and corporate stakeholders will control all production and consumption. Any entity that wants to control all production and consumption is ultimately communistic. The stakeholder system will determine what can be produced and what and how much can be consumed. The current system does not limit creativity relative to products that are allowed to be produced. The stakeholder system will limit production on excluded industries. You also fail to discuss the fact that this system will completely dismantle all societal systems globally. You speak as of this is not a radical transformation, but it is radical and oppressive.

[@jacobfield3951]

it about incentive structures? logistics isn't going to be effected radically. if anything, refocusing on long term predictability, sustainability, and efficiency will result in better outcomes without a restructuring of "all societal systems globally". for stakeholder capitalism simply, leadership and decision making of corporations is reworked by reworking three mechanisms, Who votes, what are the external liabilities, and who gets the equity. the current status quo is only 50 years old where shareholder interest representation is the primary concern of any corporation.

[@gangadin2873]

The title is accidentally VERY accurate. Unfortunately the solution given is disasterous. Here is the correct solution - let the bird-valuers negotiate with the lake-keepers and pay them to keep the birds at an optimal level. Internalize the externalities. Getting government or stakeholders on boards is a very stupid and dangerous idea.

[@rocksolidarts3567]

So, where should the bird-valuers get the money from - ask the community to contribute for capitalists to maximise their profit? This your solution is to say communities should pay the companies so they can produce less in order to reduce the pollution of the community. Think about it.

[@user-cz7cj5se9q]

I’m not sure I had an opinion on this topic last year but I wonder if this is still their opinion? I feel like a lot has changed in this regard.

[@aqib8755]

1+1=_