Was Marshall Right? Managerial Failure and Corporate Ownership in Edwardian Britain

This is a replication package for Aldous, Fliers and Turner (2023).<br><br>Alfred Marshall argued that the
malaise of public companies in Edwardian Britain was due to the separation of
ownership from control and a lack of professional management. In this paper, we
examine the ownership and control of the c.1,700 largest British companies in
1911. We find that most public companies had a separation of ownership and
control, but that this had little effect on their performance. We also find
that manager characteristics that proxy for amateurism are uncorrelated with
performance. Ultimately, our evidence suggests that, if Marshall was correct in
identifying a corporate malaise in Britain, its source lay elsewhere.