Ownership of the Large Corporation: Why Clothe the Emperor?

Abstract:     
This paper advances the claim that the large modern public corporation, especially the listed corporation, is in addition to being an entity in its own right, is an entity without owners. In other words, the large modern corporation owns itself in both and economic and legal sense, and because of this the notion of separation of ownership and control is a non sequitir. For this reason, the large modern corporation is very much a public purpose entity, licensed by the State, and whose activities and conduct of affairs are therefore, very much a concern of the Sate.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 28

Keywords: Agency theory, separation of ownership and control, Berle and Means, institutional shareholders, shifting coalitions, liquidity, risk

Accepted Paper Series