LONG-TERM STAGNATION AND FINANCIALISATION. A THEORETICAL COMPARISON BETWEEN KALECKIAN AND NEO-MARXIST APPROACHES

Subsequent to the financial crisis of 2007-2008 there has been a revival of theories on the possibility of a “secular stagnation”. Some of these theories hark back to Alvin Hansen’s doctrine, developed on Keynesian bases. Nevertheless, they have shifted attention toward a disproportion between saving and investment only explained on the basis of demographic and technological factors, typical of a neoclassical framework of growth theory. However, the idea that neo-capitalist economies have an inherent tendency to stagnation has also long been the main research objective of many heterodox economists, in particular Kaleckian and neo-Marxist, who found stagnation to be a major result of the monopolistic nature of big corporations and the features of their monopolistic forms of competition. The paper deals with some of these theories and focuses on the role that corporate governance in big corporations can play in producing growing corporate savings and putting them into financial channels.