Capital Formation - Controversy

Controversy

According to one popular kind of macro-economic definition in textbooks, capital formation refers to "the transfer of savings from households and governments to the business sector, resulting in increased output and economic expansion" (see Circular flow of income). The idea here is that individuals and governments save money, and then invest that money in the private sector, which produces more wealth with it. This definition is however inaccurate on two counts:

• Firstly, many larger corporations engage in corporate self-financing, i.e., financing from their own reserves and undistributed profits, or through loans from (or share issues bought by) other corporations. In other words, the textbook definition ignores that the largest source of investment capital consists of financial institutions, not individuals or households or governments. Admittedly, financial institutions are, "in the last instance", mostly owned by individuals, but those individuals have little control over this transfer of funds, nor do they accomplish the transfer themselves. Few individuals can say they "own" a corporation, anymore than individuals "own" the public sector. James M. Poterba (1987) found that changes in corporate saving are only partly offset (between 25% and 50%) by changes in household saving in the United States. Social accountants Richard Ruggles and Nancy D. Ruggles established for the USA that "almost all financial savings done by households is used to pay for household capital formation - particularly, housing and consumer durables. On net, the household sector channels almost no financial savings to the enterprise sector. Conversely, almost all the capital formation done by enterprises is financed through enterprise savings - particularly, undistributed gross profits." (cited from Edward N. Wolff, "In Memoriam: Richard Ruggles 1916-2001", in: Review of Income and Wealth, Series 47, Number 3, September 2001, p. 414).

• Secondly, the transfer of funds to corporations may not result in increased output or economic expansion at all; given excess capacity, a low rate of return and/or lacklustre demand, corporations may not in fact invest those funds to expand output, and engage in asset speculation instead, to obtain property income that boosts shareholder returns. To illustrate, New Zealand's Finance Minister Michael Cullen stated (NZ Herald, 24 February 2005) that "My sense is that there are definite gains to be made, both economic and social, in increasing the savings level of New Zealanders and in encouraging diversification in assets away from the residential property market." This idea is based on a flawed understanding of capital formation, ignoring the real issue - which is that the flow of mortgage repayments by households to financial institutions is not being used to expand output and employment on a scale that could repay escalating private sector debts. In reality, more and more local income and assets are appropriated by foreign share-holders and creditors in North America, Europe, Australia and Japan .

The concept of "household saving" must itself also be looked at critically, since a lot of this "saving" in reality consists precisely of investing in housing, which, given low interest rates and rising real estate prices, yields a better return than if you kept your money in the bank (or, in some cases, if you invested in shares). In other words, a mortgage from a bank can effectively function as a "savings scheme" although officially it is not regarded as "savings".