This work contains primary research texts regarding two centuries of the development of corporate finance in the US and Great Britain. It is designed to help scholars, financial managers, and public policymakers to investigate the historical background of issues in contemporary corporate finance.
This work contains primary research texts regarding two centuries of the development of corporate finance in the US and Great Britain. It is designed to help scholars, financial managers, and public policymakers to investigate the historical background of issues in contemporary corporate finance.
This work contains primary research texts regarding two centuries of the development of corporate finance in the US and Great Britain. It is designed to help scholars, financial managers, and public policymakers to investigate the historical background of issues in contemporary corporate finance.
This work contains primary research texts regarding two centuries of the development of corporate finance in the US and Great Britain. It is designed to help scholars, financial managers, and public policymakers to investigate the historical background of issues in contemporary corporate finance.
This work contains primary research texts regarding two centuries of the development of corporate finance in the US and Great Britain. It is designed to help scholars, financial managers, and public policymakers to investigate the historical background of issues in contemporary corporate finance.
This work contains primary research texts regarding two centuries of the development of corporate finance in the US and Great Britain. It is designed to help scholars, financial managers, and public policymakers to investigate the historical background of issues in contemporary corporate finance.
This book adopts a historical perspective to highlight, and bring back into focus, the key features of the modern company. A central argument in the book is that legal personhood attaching to an entity containing a corporate fund seeded by shareholders is a direct and inevitable consequence of limited liability and the company's status as a separate legal entity from its shareholders. Management by a board subject to legal duties to the company as an entity that can exist in perpetuity facilitates a long term perspective by the board that can accommodate both shareholder and stakeholder interests. These defining characteristics differentiate the modern company from other business forms. The Making of the Modern Company applies a 21st-century lens to the corporation through its history to identify turning points in its development. It sets out how key features emerged in the course of two separate developmental cycles in English corporate law: first with the English East India Company in the 17th century, and then with general incorporation statutes in the 2nd half of the 19th century. The book's historical perspective highlights that the key features are part of the 'secret sauce' of modern companies. Each cycle coincided with unparalleled periods of economic success associated with corporate activity This book will be of interest to corporate law and governance academics, theorists and practitioners, those who study the company from related disciplines, and anyone who questions why uncertainty still exists about the structure of a legal form that has been described as 'amongst mankind's greatest inventions'.
When Americans think of investment and finance, they think of Wall Street—though this was not always the case. During the dawn of the Republic, Philadelphia was the center of American finance. The first stock exchange in the nation was founded there in 1790, and around it the bustling thoroughfare known as Chestnut Street was home to the nation's most powerful financial institutions. The First Wall Street recounts the fascinating history of Chestnut Street and its forgotten role in the birth of American finance. According to Robert E. Wright, Philadelphia, known for its cultivation of liberty and freedom, blossomed into a financial epicenter during the nation's colonial period. The continent's most prodigious minds and talented financiers flocked to Philly in droves, and by the eve of the Revolution, the Quaker City was the most financially sophisticated region in North America. The First Wall Street reveals how the city played a leading role in the financing of the American Revolution and emerged from that titanic struggle with not just the wealth it forged in the crucible of war, but an invaluable amount of human capital as well. This capital helped make Philadelphia home to the Bank of the United States, the U.S. Mint, an active securities exchange, and several banks and insurance companies—all clustered in or around Chestnut Street. But as the decades passed, financial institutions were lured to New York, and by the late 1820s only the powerful Second Bank of the United States upheld Philadelphia's financial stature. But when Andrew Jackson vetoed its charter, he sealed the fate of Chestnut Street forever—and of Wall Street too. Finely nuanced and elegantly written, The First Wall Street will appeal to anyone interested in the history of the United States and the origins of its unrivaled economy.
Of all the sciences and social sciences, management is the one that most deliberately turns its back on the past. Yet management as we know it today did not spring into life fully formed. Management has more than just a present; it also has a past, and a future, and all three are inextricably linked. This book charts the evolution of management as an intellectual discipline, from ancient times to the present day. Contemporary management challenges, including sustainability, technology and data, and legitimacy are analysed through an historical lens and with the benefit of new case studies. The author helps readers understand how the evolution of management ideas has interacted with changes in society. By framing management's history as one of challenge and response, this new edition is the perfect accompaniment for students and scholars seeking meaningful study in the business school and beyond. Essential reading as a core textbook in management history, the book is also valuable supplementary reading across the humanities and social sciences.