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.

阿尔弗雷德·马歇尔 (Alfred Marshall) 认为，爱德华时代英国上市公司的萎靡不振是由于所有权与控制权的分离以及缺乏专业管理。在本文中，我们研究了 1911 年约 1,700 家最大的英国公司的所有权和控制权。我们发现大多数上市公司的所有权和控制权是分离的，但这对它们的绩效影响不大。我们还发现，代表业余主义的经理特征与绩效无关。最终，我们的证据表明，如果马歇尔在确定英国的企业萎靡不振方面是正确的，那么它的根源就在别处。