ValueLogics.ai
Capital allocation · S&P 500
What was left over after the shareholders were paid
Share of net income distributed as buybacks and dividends, versus the share retained for productive capability, research and employee income.
4%
of a decade of S&P 500 net income was available for productive capability, research and employee income combined — 2012 to 2021, across 474 continuously listed companies.
Buybacks
Dividends
Retained for capability, research & income
Early 1980s
before buybacks became routine
2003 – 2012
449 companies · $2.4 trillion of buybacks
2012 – 2021
474 companies · $5.7 trillion of buybacks
| Period | Buybacks | Dividends | Distributed | Retained |
|---|
| Early 1980s | 4.3% | ~50% | ~54% | ~46% |
| 2003–2012 | 54% | 37% | 91% | 9% |
| 2012–2021 | 55% | 41% | 96% | 4% |
Reading it: the amber band is what was left to build with. It goes from roughly half of earnings, to a ninth, to a twenty-fifth. The buyback total over the most recent decade — $5.7 trillion — is more than double the $2.4 trillion of the decade before.
Sources: William Lazonick, Profits Without Prosperity (2003–2012 cohort) and The Scourge of Corporate Financialization, Institute for New Economic Thinking (2012–2021 cohort). Early-1980s buyback figure 1981–83; dividend ratio is the 1980s decade average, so that bar is indicative rather than a like-for-like cohort.