Democratic Dividends: Stockholding, Wealth and Politics in New York, 1791-1826
Eric Hilt and
Jacqueline Valentine
No 17147, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the early history of corporate shareholding, and its relationship with political change. In the late eighteenth century, corporations were extremely rare and were dominated by elites, but in the early nineteenth century, after American politics became significantly more democratic, corporations proliferated rapidly. Using newly collected data, this paper compares the wealth and status of New York City households who owned corporate stock to the general population there both in 1791, when there were only two corporations in the state, and in 1826, when there were hundreds. The results indicate that although corporate stock was held principally by the city's elite merchants in both periods, share ownership became more widespread over time among less affluent households. In particular, the corporations created in the 1820s were owned and managed by investors who were less wealthy than the stockholders of corporations created in earlier, less democratic periods in the state's history.
JEL-codes: K22 N21 N41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-law and nep-pol
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Published as Hilt, Eric & Valentine, Jacqueline, 2012. "Democratic Dividends: Stockholding, Wealth, and Politics in New York, 1791–1826," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(02), pages 332-363, June.
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