Wages, Bonuses and Appropriation of Profit in the Financial Industry

The Working Rich
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-138-12396-0
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 258 Seiten, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 499 g

Reihe: Routledge International Studies in Money and Banking

The 2008 financial crisis led the whole world to ask questions of the financial industry. Why are wages in the financial industry so high? Are bonuses responsible for the financial crisis? Where do bonuses come from? Politicians and others urged people to believe that the crisis was the price of Wall Street’s greed and blamed the "bonus culture" prevalent in the financial industry. However, despite widespread condemnation and the threat of tighter regulation, bonuses in the industry have proven remarkably resilient.

Wages, Bonuses and Appropriation of Profit in the Financial Industry provides an in-depth inquiry into the bonus system. Drawing on examples from France, the City and Wall Street, it explains how and why workers in the financial industry can receive such large bonuses. The book examines issues around incentives, morality and wealth-sharing among employees, including the rise of "the working rich" – those who have benefited the most from the high wages and large bonuses on offer to some employees. These people have achieved wealth through their work thanks to new forms of exploitation in our ever-more dematerialised economy. This book shows how the most mobile employees holding the most mobile assets can exploit the most immobile stakeholders. In a world where inequalities are rising sharply, this book is therefore an important study of one of the key contemporary issues.

It will be of vital interest to those studying finance, banking or political economy.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Godechot, Olivier

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

Foreword Understanding Before Regulating

Introduction Finance as a Working Rich Observatory

Part I Bonus Practices

Chapter 1 The Size of Bonuses

Chapter 2 The Distribution of Bonuses

Part II Property Rights and Power

Chapter 3 Property Rights in the Firm

Chapter 4 The Sense of Ownership of Profit

Chapter 5 Assets and Power

Part III Hold-Up and Labour Market

Chapter 6 A Hold-Up Case

Chapter 7 Towards a Model of Hold-Up

Chapter 8 The Labour Market as Asset Transfer

Chapter 9 What Do Heads of Trading Rooms Do?

Conclusion Value Creation for Wage Earners?

Über Autor(innen)

Olivier Godechot is codirector of MaxPo, Sociology Professor at Sciences Po and Research Professor at CNRS, France.