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...

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...