Why the CHIPS Are Down: Stock Buybacks and Subsidies in the U.S. Semiconductor Industry

28 Pages Posted: 3 Nov 2021 Last revised: 8 Dec 2021

See all articles by William Lazonick

William Lazonick

University of Massachusetts Lowell; The Academic-Industry Research Network; Instiitute for New Economic Thinking

Matt Hopkins

The Academic-Industry Research Network

Date Written: September 27, 2021

Abstract

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) is promoting the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act, introduced in Congress in June 2020. An SIA press release describes the bill as “bipartisan legislation that would invest tens of billions of dollars in semiconductor manufacturing incentives and research initiatives over the next 5-10 years to strengthen and sustain American leadership in chip technology, which is essential to our country’s economy and national security.”

On June 8, 2021, the Senate approved $52 billion for the CHIPS for America Act, dedicated to supporting the U.S. semiconductor industry over the next decade. This paper highlights a curious paradox: Most of the SIA corporate members now lobbying for the CHIPS for America Act have squandered past support that the U.S. semiconductor industry has received from the U.S. government for decades by using their corporate cash to do buybacks to boost their own companies’ stock prices. Among the SIA corporate signatories of a letter to President Biden in February 2021, the five largest stock repurchasers—Intel, IBM, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Broadcom—did a combined $249 billion in buybacks over the decade 2011-2020, equal to 71 percent of their profits and almost five times the subsidies over the next decade for which the SIA is lobbying. In addition, among the members of the Semiconductors in America Coalition (SIAC), formed specifically in May 2021 to lobby Congress for the passage of the CHIPS for America Act, are Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, and Google. These firms spent a combined $633 billion on buybacks during 2011-2020. That is about 12 times the government subsidies provided under the CHIPS for America Act to support semiconductor fabrication in the United States in the upcoming decade.

If the Congress wants to achieve the legislation’s stated purpose of promoting major new investments in semiconductors, it needs to deal with this paradox. It could, for example, require the SIA and SIAC to extract pledges from its member corporations that they will cease doing stock buybacks as open-market repurchases over the next ten years. Such regulation could be a first step in rescinding Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b-18, which has since 1982 been a major cause of extreme income inequality and loss of global industrial competitiveness in the United States.

Keywords: Semiconductor fabrication, nanometer technology, global competition, CHIPS for America Act, Semiconductor Industry Association, Semiconductors in America Coalition, stock buybacks, Intel, TSMC, Samsung Electronics, IBM, GlobalFoundries, Apple, semiconductor fabrication equipment, Huawei.

JEL Classification: D01, D21, D25, D40, G22, G28, G35, G38, L21, L52, L63

Suggested Citation

Lazonick, William and Hopkins, Matt, Why the CHIPS Are Down: Stock Buybacks and Subsidies in the U.S. Semiconductor Industry (September 27, 2021). Institute for New Economic Thinking Working Paper Series No. 165, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3952144

William Lazonick (Contact Author)

University of Massachusetts Lowell ( email )

1 University Ave
Lowell, MA 01854
United States

The Academic-Industry Research Network ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://www.theAIRnet.org

Instiitute for New Economic Thinking ( email )

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New York, NY 10010
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Matt Hopkins

The Academic-Industry Research Network ( email )

12 Newport Road
Porter Square
Cambridge, MA 02140
United States

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