The Rise and Fall (?) of the Berle-Means Corporation
View / Open Files
Authors
Cheffins, BR
Publication Date
2018-08-01Journal Title
Seattle University Law Review
ISSN
1078-1927
Type
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Cheffins, B. (2018). The Rise and Fall (?) of the Berle-Means Corporation. Seattle University Law Review https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.27945
Abstract
This paper forms part of the proceedings of the 10th Annual Berle Symposium (2018), which focused on Adolf Berle and the world he influenced. He and Gardiner Means documented in The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932) what they said was a separation of ownership and control in major American business enterprises. Berle and Means became sufficiently closely associated with the separation of ownership and control pattern for the large American public firm to be christened subsequently “the Berle-Means corporation”. This paper focuses on the “rise” of the Berle-Means corporation, considering in so doing why ownership became divorced from control in most of America’s biggest companies. It also assesses whether developments concerning institutional investors and shareholder activism have precipitated the “fall” of the Berle-Means corporation, meaning U.S. corporate governance is no longer characterized by a separation of ownership and control.
Sponsorship
Major Research Fellowship, Levehulme Trust
Funder references
Leverhulme Trust (MRF-2015-050)
Identifiers
This record's DOI: https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.27945
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/280577
Rights
Licence:
http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved
Statistics
Total file downloads (since January 2020). For more information on metrics see the
IRUS guide.