Politicians Seek Short-Term Advantages By Lecturing Capitalists About The Long Term by Gary Galles, Mises Institute Hillary Clinton’s latest campaign salvo attacked “quarterly capitalism,” the supposedly irresponsible corporate focus on short-term results at the expense of long-term growth. She promised government fixes. Short-Termism, Share Prices, and Incentives Is there too much short-termism in business firms? To answer this, let’s look at participants’ incentives. Shareholders own the present value of their pro-rata share of net earnings, not just present earnings. They do not want to hurt themselves by sacrificing good investments today which raise that expected present value. Owners often tarred as too selfish do not ignore those consequences. Critics also confuse short-term corporate results as the goal, when they are actually valuable indicators of the likely future course of net earnings. Just because good short-term results raise stock prices does not imply excessive short-termism. Since share prices are both a primary metric for managerial success and basis for their rewards, and they reflect the present value of expected future net earnings, managers’ time horizons reflect shareholders’ time horizons, stretching far beyond immediate measures. Bondholders, who want to be paid back, incorporate the future, where repayment risks lie, in their choices. Workers and suppliers are also sensitive to firms’ future prospects, and the prospect of those relationships being terminated if things start turning south forces consideration of the future in present choices. Beyond misinterpreting share price responses to good short-term results as short-term bias, Clinton’s main proof of short-termism was that firms have increased stock... More