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CATEGORIES:Financial History Seminar
SUMMARY:A Global Census of Corporations in 1910 - Professo
 r Leslie Hannah\, LSE and Tokyo
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20130429T170000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20130429T190000
UID:TALK42740AThttp://talks.cam.ac.uk
URL:http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/42740
DESCRIPTION:Exploiting a new global database on the numbers an
 d paid-in capital of business corporations in eigh
 ty-one countries in 1910\, the paper considers the
  determinants of both corporatization (the incorpo
 ration of assets\, whether in closed\, private com
 panies or in publicly-quoted ones) and securitizat
 ion (the proportion of corporate share capital quo
 ted on organized stock exchanges). The\ncapitali
 st institution that now dominates global business 
 initially prospered less under the French or\nGer
 man civil law systems - adopted by most world econ
 omies - than under English common law and\nits de
 rivatives\, though this correlation may not imply 
 causation.\n\nIt is clear there were wide variatio
 ns in corporatization in the Asia-Pacific region. 
 There was some variation in Europe and America\, b
 ut it was difficult on those continents to find co
 untries with less than 20 corporations per million
  people (or similarly low ratios of corporate capi
 tal to GDP)\, though this was the norm in Asia-Pac
 ific (heavily weighed down by the low level in Chi
 na and the modest level in India). Asian exception
 s\, with levels of corporatization per capita near
  continental European levels\, were Japan\, the Fe
 derated Malay States\, the Straits Settlements\, S
 amoa and New Caledonia (the latter achieve it only
  with miniscule population denominators). The only
  Asia-Pacific countries with levels of corporatiza
 tion near the much higher US\, UK or Scandinavian 
 levels were Australia\, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
  In fact Hong Kong had the highest ratio of corpor
 ate capital to GDP in the world\, a reflection of 
 its distinctive early role as transmitter of weste
 rn corporate law to Asia more generally (a role it
  still fulfils today after re-integration with the
  mainland).\nThe\ncapitalist institution that no
 w dominates global business initially prospered le
 ss under the French or\nGerman civil law systems 
 - adopted by most world economies - than under Eng
 lish common law and\nits derivatives\, though thi
 s correlation may not imply causation.\n\nA centur
 y later\, despite the suppression of the corporati
 on for many decades in some countries\,\nthere wer
 e many times more corporations in all countries an
 d patterns of adoption were\nconverging. The more 
 interesting differences in 1910 were between (ofte
 n poor) enclave economies\nwith capital-importing 
 corporate sectors and economies (at various income
  levels) with a vibrant\nlocal small private compa
 ny sector. This new quantitative perspective chall
 enges some orthodoxies\nand raises new questions a
 bout the relationship between early corporate deve
 lopment and\neconomic outcomes.
LOCATION:Lucia Windsor Room\, Newnham College
CONTACT:D'Maris Coffman
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