Based on a wide array of data collected by the author, this book uses clear theoretically motivated economic analysis to explain the structure, performance, and influence of universal banks and securities markets on firms during industrialisation. The German universal banks played a significant but not overwhelming role in the ownership and control of corporate firms. Banks gained access to boards via a confluence of their underwriting and brokerage activities, the legal phenomena of bearer shares and deposited voting rights, and the flourishing securities markets of the turn of the twentieth...

This book examines the origins of modern corporate finance systems during the rapid industrialization period leading up to World War I. The study leads to three sets of conclusions. First, modern financial systems are rooted in the past, are idiosyncratic to specific countries, and are highly path-dependent. Therefore, to understand current financial institutions, we must take stock of the forces at play in the near and distant past: political and regulatory intervention, natural resource endowments, educational institutions, and social and religious beliefs. Second, financial institutions...