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...

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...