>Instead, they primarily used the newfound liquidity for shareholder payouts and cash retention, which challenges existing financial theories and provides new i

>Instead, they primarily used the newfound liquidity for shareholder payouts and cash retention, which challenges existing financial theories and provides new insight into corporate responses to large-scale tax policy changes, as detailed in the study. This article and paper (if accurately reported), make the mistake of treating each company as a closed system. The obvious question is what shareholders do with returns. Not all companies are in a high growth phase, nor should they be. Gains flow from mature profitable companies to growth companies with shareholders as an intermediary. Quantifying this type of macroeconomic transfer is a very different task than looking at company balance sheets and taking an average. By way of example, an investor with a portfolio doesn't need a mature company to develop a new iPhone. You take the cash from the utility and go shopping for that growth company.