The aim of this dissertation is to know to what extent an economic crisis can result from a specific dimension of financialization: the search for shareholder value by firms. Financialization is the unprecedented influences of financial systems over some components of the economic activities after the liberalization of such systems since the 1970s. Among the aforesaid components we can find the management of firms. Such management is shaped so that production expenditures are lowered as much as possible while priority is given to debt for financing decisions. The objective is to create as much 'shareholder value' as possible, to wit, to create as much income as possible for shareholders. The dissertation unfolds in four steps. First, a critical survey is made. The problem is generally solved by means of models putting into equations equilibrated markets. However, the convergence to equilibrium is barely proved. This logical inconsistency is not new and affects economic theory as a whole. Thus, solving the problem can be based on a model which conceptualizes the economic activities without referring to equilibrated markets. The second step is to elaborate on such conceptualization. A possibility is to account for the economic activities on the basis of money, thus giving rise to a monetary approach of these activities. The emphasis is put on the interrelated payments made possible by the use of money, the latter being the unit for payments to be expressed and the means through which payments are made. Payments are conceptualized in relation with three components: i) the process that creates means of payment, generally bank credit; ii) the settlement of negative balances (some agents cannot fully repay their debts as they do not benefit from enough payments); and iii) the modification of payments by agents from one period to another, according to their objectives and constraints. These modifications lead the network of payments to evolve over time. The third step is to put into equations an evolving network of payments in order to solve the problem. A system of non-linear recurrence equations determine all payments from a typology elaborated beforehand, as well as the financing of them. The system also determines the settlement of the negatives balances which result from payments. The numerous recurrences give rise to evolution. The whole system abstracts from goods and the related phenomena, in accordance with the monetary approach. The fourth step is to use the model for the problem to be solved. An economic crisis can be the result of the evolution per se. Agents which periodically change their payments can lead other agents to record negative balances. Thus, the network of payments can evolve in such a way that some firms are insolvent. The subsequent bankruptcies can be large enough to decrease production and employment, as in an economic crisis. In that case, the evolution of the network of payments is defined as non-viable. To know if the search for shareholder value leads to an economic crisis thus amounts to know if the search for shareholder value leads to a non-viable evolution of the network of payments. Numerical simulations are made, notably with the configurations of parameters that are associated to a more or less search for shareholder value by firms. The model leads to the following general result: either the search for shareholder value results in an economic crisis, either it moves the economic activities closer to a crisis, either the latter occurs irrespective of the search for shareholder value. This result applies whether management is totally oriented by shareholder value or only a few. This result also applies without savings and with the indebtedness of wage-earners, contrary to the models of the survey; however they fail due to the difficulties to prove the formation of their equilibrated markets.
