The debate over the merits of short-termism versus long-termism has raged for many years but has now finally been put to bed. A 15-year longitudinal study by McKinsey (yes the same one) from 2001-15 involving 651 non-financial US companies (60% to 65% of the total US market cap) found that the long-term focused companies surpassed their short-term focused peers on several important financial and economic measures. The findings were published in a report by the McKinsey Global Institute in February 2017 entitled, Where companies with a long-term view outperform their peers. The reported gains are: • Average job creation for the 164 long-term-oriented companies over the 15-year period was 11,600 above the average for the 451 short-term-oriented companies: long-termism added about 2-million jobs; • McKinsey estimates that if the entire market were long-term, 8-million more jobs could have been added (5-million in the US and 3-million overseas); and • 5%-million more jobs in the US woul...
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