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SUMMARY:A Global Census of Corporations in 1910 - Professor Leslie Hannah\
 , LSE and Tokyo
DTSTART:20130429T160000Z
DTEND:20130429T180000Z
UID:TALK42740@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:D'Maris Coffman
DESCRIPTION:Exploiting a new global database on the numbers and paid-in ca
 pital of business corporations in eighty-one countries in 1910\, the paper
  considers the determinants of both corporatization (the incorporation of 
 assets\, whether in closed\, private companies or in publicly-quoted ones)
  and securitization (the proportion of corporate share capital quoted on o
 rganized stock exchanges). The\ncapitalist institution that now domi
 nates global business initially prospered less under the French or\nGer
 man civil law systems - adopted by most world economies - than under Engli
 sh common law and\nits derivatives\, though this correlation may not im
 ply causation.\n\nIt is clear there were wide variations in corporatizatio
 n in the Asia-Pacific region. There was some variation in Europe and Ameri
 ca\, but it was difficult on those continents to find countries with less 
 than 20 corporations per million people (or similarly low ratios of corpor
 ate capital to GDP)\, though this was the norm in Asia-Pacific (heavily we
 ighed down by the low level in China and the modest level in India). Asian
  exceptions\, with levels of corporatization per capita near continental E
 uropean levels\, were Japan\, the Federated Malay States\, the Straits Set
 tlements\, Samoa and New Caledonia (the latter achieve it only with minisc
 ule population denominators). The only Asia-Pacific countries with levels 
 of corporatization near the much higher US\, UK or Scandinavian levels wer
 e Australia\, New Zealand and Hong Kong. In fact Hong Kong had the highest
  ratio of corporate capital to GDP in the world\, a reflection of its dist
 inctive early role as transmitter of western corporate law to Asia more ge
 nerally (a role it still fulfils today after re-integration with the mainl
 and).\nThe\ncapitalist institution that now dominates global busines
 s initially prospered less under the French or\nGerman civil law system
 s - adopted by most world economies - than under English common law and\n
 its derivatives\, though this correlation may not imply causation.\n\nA
  century later\, despite the suppression of the corporation for many decad
 es in some countries\,\nthere were many times more corporations in all cou
 ntries and patterns of adoption were\nconverging. The more interesting dif
 ferences in 1910 were between (often poor) enclave economies\nwith capital
 -importing corporate sectors and economies (at various income levels) with
  a vibrant\nlocal small private company sector. This new quantitative pers
 pective challenges some orthodoxies\nand raises new questions about the re
 lationship between early corporate development and\neconomic outcomes.
LOCATION:Lucia Windsor Room\, Newnham College
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