Investment and rate of profit in a financial context: The French case

The growth regime which prevailed in France since the middle of the 1980s is characterised by a recovery of profitability without durable resumption of growth or accumulation of productive capital. The financialization of this growth regime can be read in firms' balance sheet structure with rising shares of equities. Following a Post-Keynesian framework, the main determinants of capital accumulation and finance are analysed and tested at the level of non financial companies for France from flow of funds national accounts. The arbitration which seems to prevail between real and financial accumulation could contribute to explain the insufficient recovery of investment. Regarding firms' liability structure, two alternative approaches are considered, one in terms of indebtedness norm, the other in terms of arbitration between financing by debt and issuing shares.