Abstract :
Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means famously declared in 1932
that a separation of ownership and control was a hallmark of
large U.S. corporations, and their characterization of matters
quickly became received wisdom. A series of recent papers has
called the Berle–Means orthodoxy into question. This survey
of the relevant historical literature acknowledges that the pattern
of ownership and control in U.S. public companies is not
monolithic. Nevertheless, a separation between ownership
and control remains an appropriate reference point for analysis
of U.S. corporate governance.
