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Corporations as Instruments of state power: emergency and support

Part 2 of 2
Published on April 30, 2026   6 min

A selection of talks on Finance, Accounting & Economics

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Hello. I'm Prof. Anna Grosman, and I teach at Loughborough University. Today, I will talk about state capitalism, and I will talk about corporations as instruments of state power.
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Today, I want to talk about political connections and bailouts. This lecture is about corporations benefiting from their political connections in times of crisis, in particular, during pandemics or financial crisis and how do they benefit from government bailouts. UK companies, in particular, with powerful majority owners or political ties during the crisis had higher bailout chances, leveraging their political capital for financial support. Some of my research that was published in Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space journal highlighted evidence that bailout allocations to different firms lacked clear criteria, which led to government favoring some firms over the others. That political favoritism of politically connected firms over the others distorted competition and also disadvantaged businesses without political connections. During the pandemic, the UK government took a more proactive role in helping and financing businesses. It provided financial assistance as low-interest government loans. It also paid salaries during lockdown, while people were not working, and it also spent money on just trying to fill the economic vacuum. This form of capitalism, which is known as state capitalism, involves governments assuming the role of an active economic agent. That expands the state's role as a promoter, supervisor, and owner of capital, with a far greater control over the economy.

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Corporations as Instruments of state power: emergency and support

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