We analyse a new dataset of 483 manufacturing firms in 1881 either that employed at least 1000 or had done so a decade earlier. Among these firms the majority were partnerships, but public corporations attained higher capital/ labour ratios and stronger employment growth than other business...

Because ownership was already more divorced from control in the largest stock market of 1911 (London) than in the largest stock market of 1995 (New York), the consequences for the economy, for good or ill, could have been considerable. Using a large sample of quoted companies with capital of £1...

The consensus among legal and economic historians that British law between 1844 and 1914 provided little protection to corporate shareholders is based on formal provisions in the Companies Acts. In fact these Acts applied only to companies registered by the Board of Trade. Moreover corporate law...

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 £1m or more share capital...

Around 1900 Britain was exceptionally suited to pioneering large scale enterprises because of the precocious development of its equity markets and London's experimentation with a more eclectic range of corporate governance techniques than the world's smaller and less cosmopolitan financial...

In 1900 US business corporations were dominated by plutocratic family owners, while British and French quoted companies more commonly divorced ownership from control. 'Democratic' corporate governance rules explain some of Europe's precocity and London's exceptional listing requirement of large...

The consensus among legal and economic historians that British law between 1844 and 1914 provided little protection to corporate shareholders is based on formal provisions in the Companies Acts. In fact these Acts applied only to companies registered by the Board of Trade. Moreover corporate law...

La Porta et al see Anglo-American common law as most favourable to economic development, but in 1899 Japan explicitly preferred the German corporate law tradition. Yet its new Commercial Code omitted the GmbH (private company) form, which Guinnane et al see as the jewel in the crown of...