Investor Sentiment and Antitrust Law as Determinants of Corporate Ownership Structure: The Great Merger Wave of 1897 to 1903
55 Pages Posted: 15 Jan 2003
Date Written: October 2002
Abstract
A great merger wave occurring in the United States between 1897 and 1903 was the single most important event in a process that yielded the pattern of managerial control and dispersed share ownership which currently distinguishes America's corporate economy from arrangements in most other countries. This paper examines the turn-of-the-century consolidation movement in order to offer lessons on how patterns of ownership and control become configured. The United States constitutes the central reference point for analysis but the paper also considers events occurring in Germany.
One theme the paper develops is that mergers matter with respect to the evolution of systems of ownership and control. Events occurring in the U.S. and Germany indicate that different patterns of acquisition activity in the two countries had important consequences for the evolution of business forms that persist to the present day. A second topic the paper deals with is the process by which a country's investors become sufficiently comfortable owning publicly traded shares to permit a transition from concentrated to dispersed share ownership. The merger wave of 1897 to 1903 illustrates that surges in demand for shares founded upon optimistic investor sentiment is a potentially important variable. A third theme the paper emphasizes is antitrust law's significance. The experience in the U.S. and Germany suggests that the legal status of anti-competitive alliances is a potentially important determinant of corporate ownership structures.
JEL Classification: G30, G32, G34, K21, K22, L41, N21, N23
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Unchecked Intermediaries: Price Manipulation in an Emerging Stock Market
By Atif R. Mian and Asim Ijaz Khwaja
-
Market Manipulation: A Comprehensive Study of Stock Pools
By Guolin Jiang, Paul G. Mahoney, ...
-
Market Manipulation: A Comprehensive Study of Stock Pools
By Guolin Jiang, Paul G. Mahoney, ...
-
Market Manipulation: A Comprehensive Study of Stock Pools
By Guolin Jiang, Paul G. Mahoney, ...
-
By Chunsheng Zhou and Jianping Mei
-
Large Investors, Price Manipulation, and Limits to Arbitrage: An Anatomy of Market Corners
By Franklin Allen, Lubomir P. Litov, ...
-
Large Investors, Price Manipulation, and Limits to Arbitrage: An Anatomy of Market Corners
By Franklin Allen, Lubomir P. Litov, ...