> In the 20th century, U.S. companies put their excess profits into corporate research labs. Basic research in the U.S. was done in at Dupont, Bell Labs, IBM, AT&T, Xerox, Kodak, GE, et al. This changed in 1982, when the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that it was legal for companies to buy their own stock (reducing the number of shares available to the public and inflating their stock price.) Very quickly Basic Science in corporate research all but disappeared. Companies focused on Applied Research to maximize shareholder value. In its place, Theory and Basic research is now done in research universities.
I'm not seeing how you get from share buybacks to a shift in priorities in corporate research. If there's a fundamental reason why it can't be done now how it was before the 80's it's not that.
I'm not seeing how you get from share buybacks to a shift in priorities in corporate research. If there's a fundamental reason why it can't be done now how it was before the 80's it's not that.