Uploaded January 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Lenore Palladino (@UMass.Amherst) explains how stock buybacks drive inequality, and why we desperately need a policy shift.
Palladino highlights how these unregulated practices, booming since the 1980s, not only manipulate market prices but also significantly influence the racial wealth gap in the United States. She explains that shareholder primacy, a doctrine deeply embedded in corporate law, prioritizes increasing share prices over other aspects of corporate responsibility. This focus disproportionately benefits wealthy, predominantly white households, who own most corporate equity, exacerbating the racial wealth gap. Moreover, she criticizes the extensive funds spent on stock buybacks, around $6.3 trillion in the 2010s, which could otherwise enhance corporate productivity and worker wages. Palladino advocates for regulatory changes and new legislation to address these issues, emphasizing the importance of industrial policy-making and investment in public welfare over shareholder gains. Her insights offer a critical perspective on the intersection of corporate practices, market manipulation, and social inequality.
Learn more at lenorepalladino.com
Lenore Palladino (@UMass.Amherst) explains how stock buybacks drive inequality, and why we desperately need a policy shift.
Palladino highlights how these unregulated practices, booming since the 1980s, not only manipulate market prices but also significantly influence the racial wealth gap in the United States. She explains that shareholder primacy, a doctrine deeply embedded in corporate law, prioritizes increasing share prices over other aspects of corporate responsibility. This focus disproportionately benefits wealthy, predominantly white households, who own most corporate equity, exacerbating the racial wealth gap. Moreover, she criticizes the extensive funds spent on stock buybacks, around $6.3 trillion in the 2010s, which could otherwise enhance corporate productivity and worker wages. Palladino advocates for regulatory changes and new legislation to address these issues, emphasizing the importance of industrial policy-making and investment in public welfare over shareholder gains. Her insights offer a critical perspective on the intersection of corporate practices, market manipulation, and social inequality.
Learn more at lenorepalladino.com
![System Change - [ECO]NOMICS Part 4](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eT0tp3OfF64/mqdefault.jpg "System Change - [ECO]NOMICS Part 4
Encouraged by economists, current mainstream policy on climate change has been too focused on green growth, and reliant on market-based solutions, which have proven inadequate to the challenge. Professor Juliet Shor emphasizes it is time to reject business as usual and build a new economy.
In this fourth and last part of [ECO]NOMICS, Prof. Schor explores the structural changes necessary to live within planetary boundaries.
For starters, we need to improve our understanding of human well-being. Public policy has focused on a single flawed number - GDP - ignoring that higher quality of life can be achieved on other dimensions, like fewer working hours. While growth is essential for poor countries to achieve decent standards of living, after a certain threshold, the incremental benefits of increasing GDP are fewer and unequally distributed. Prof. Schor shows it is both economically and technically feasible to achieve high levels of well-being without fossil fuels.
Climate policy should jettison the growth imperative, but it cannot overlook the equality imperative. We are in a climate crisis because of inequalities of power and resources, both within countries and globally. Prof. Schor outlines what needs to be done to address climate destabilization successfully and efficiently: mandate shifts to clean renewable energy, democratic control of investment flows, and a just transition with equity at its core. The State needs to be at the center of this response. But Prof. Schor warns that concentrations of wealth often translate into control of the State and policy inaction, so we need to also address the distribution of power and democratization. In light of recent tendencies, a large and vigorous social movement may be necessary to spur our governments to act.
Learn more at https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/videos/eco-nomics
Credits: Juliet Schor, Matthew Kulvicki, Nick Alpha, Gonçalo Fonseca, Kurt Semm")
![Sellers Inflation [Isabella Weber]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fjoDjv1R3to/mqdefault.jpg "Sellers Inflation [Isabella Weber]
Is inflation just a number game or does it hold deeper societal implications?
Join Isabella Weber (@UMass.Amherst) as she challenges traditional economic stances on inflation and delves into the social dimensions of pricing. Discover how context shapes our reactions to price hikes and why understanding this can be a game-changer.
Learn more about her work at https://www.isabellaweber.com/
Explore the subject of inflation at https://www.ineteconomics.org/search?q=inflation&sort=date
Produced by Matthew Kulvicki & Nick Alpha")
