The surge in stock buy-backs is in very large part due to a choice being made by corporations with what to do with their tax break money.
Federal corporate tax receipts fell from an annualized level of $409 billion in Q1 2017 to $269 billion in Q1 2018, a direct result of the Trump tax cuts
The promise was this cash would boost workers' income and be invested in innovation and machinery.
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The mechanism for this increased growth is at higher business investment levels (one of the components of GDP) due to the additional after-tax income available
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Corporations had prior to the enactment of the huge tax break made very clear that they intended to use the money for stock buy-backs and debt relief, not to help workers or invest. See
here and
here.
But the short term stock holder does not benefit from long term investment and the corporation is there to serve its stockholders which of course includes the board of directors. So use the cash to buy your own stock, this raises the "value" of the stock but does nothing for the worker or the long term success of the business.