Abstract:

Alfred Marshall argued that the malaise of public companies in Edwardian Britain was due to the separation of ownership from control and a lack of professional management. In this paper, we examine the ownership and control of the largest c.1,700 British companies in 1911. We find that most public companies had a separation of ownership and control, but that this had little effect on their performance. We also find that manager characteristics proxying for amateurism were uncorrelated with performance. Ultimately, economic and business historians should look elsewhere for the roots of Britain’s corporate demise during the twentieth century.