We present the first broadly representative study for any early twentieth century economy of the extent to which quoted company ownership was already divorced from managerial control. In the 337 largest, independent, UK companies in the Investor's Year Book (those with \pounds 1m or more share...

The documented discount on globally diversified firms is often cited, but a correlation is not per se evidence that global diversification destroys firm value. Firms choose to globally diversify based on their firm attributes, some of which may be unobservable. Given these exogenous firm...

Do empirical estimates in economics reflect the political orientation of economists? We show that policy-relevant parameters are correlated with economist partisanship as predicted from the text of published academic papers. Specifically, we predict observed political behavior of a subset of...

This essay examines the fate of the 100 largest industrial firms in the world in 1912 over the period to 1995. Disappearance and decline were the most common outcomes, but a few outstanding performers ù firms like Burmah / BP and Procter & Gamble ù left descendants eight or nine times their...

This essay examines the fate of the 100 largest industrial firms in the world in 1912 over the period to 1995. Disappearance and decline were the most common outcomes, but a few outstanding performers ù firms like Burmah / BP and Procter & Gamble ù left descendants eight or nine times their...