Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Corporate Ownership, Control, and Firm Performance in Victorian Britain

Acheson, Graeme; Turner, John; Campbell, Gareth; Vanteeva, Nadia

Corporate Ownership, Control, and Firm Performance in Victorian Britain Thumbnail


Authors

Graeme Acheson

John Turner

Gareth Campbell



Abstract

Scholars have long debated whether ownership matters for firm performance. The standard view regarding Victorian Britain is that family-controlled companies had a detrimental effect on performance. In this article, we examine this view using a hand-collected corporate ownership dataset. Our main finding is that it was not necessarily the broad structure of corporate ownership that mattered for performance, but whether family blockholders had a governance role. Large active blockholders tended to increase operating performance, implying that they reduced managerial expropriation. Contrastingly, we find that directors who were independent of large owners were more likely to increase shareholder value.

Citation

Acheson, G., Campbell, G., Turner, J., & Vanteeva, N. (2016). Corporate Ownership, Control, and Firm Performance in Victorian Britain. Journal of Economic History, 76(1), 1-40. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050716000450

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Feb 25, 2016
Publication Date Mar 1, 2016
Deposit Date Sep 29, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Journal of Economic History
Print ISSN 0022-0507
Electronic ISSN 1471-6372
Publisher Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 76
Issue 1
Pages 1-40
DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050716000450
Keywords corporate ownership, performance, Victorian Britain
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/913696
Publisher URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0022050716000450

Files






You might also like



Downloadable Citations