Michael Jensen, who died on April 2, did as much as any single thinker to shape modern financial capitalism, particularly as it is practiced 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 tumors and prescribing a strict exercise regime.

Nobody can deny his extraordinary influence. His elective at Harvard Business School was the most popular in the institution’s history, enrolling more than 600 students, two-thirds of each year’s class, many of whom went on to restructure American capitalism during one of its most excited phases. And nobody can deny the rigor of his ideas about the central issues in business theory: the proper boundaries of the firm, the ideal incentive structure, the market for corporate control and the advantages and disadvantages of public versus private companies. His groundbreaking article, co-written with William Meckling, “Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure,” has earned more than 130,000 Google citations, more than any other article in financial economics.

QOSHE - How ‘Shareholder Value’ Became a Wall Street Mantra - Adrian Wooldridge
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How ‘Shareholder Value’ Became a Wall Street Mantra

8 1
09.04.2024

Michael Jensen, who died on April 2, did as much as any single thinker to shape modern financial capitalism, particularly as it is practiced 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........

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