Death on the Stock Exchange the Fate of the 1948 Population of Large UK Quoted Companies, 1948–2018

This paper provides a long-term demographic analysis of the principal members of the population of companies quoted on the UK stock exchanges in 1948. Motivated by theories of natural selection and of corporate governance, it traces the survival records of the 1948 population over the biblical “threescore years and ten” to 2018. As well as charting death rates over time, it explores the causes of death – takeover, failure, etc. And it analyses the relationship between survival and the characteristics of the firm and its environment