IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/bushst/v65y2023i4p679-698.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Death on the stock exchange: The fate of the 1948 population of large UK quoted companies, 1948–2018

Author

Listed:
  • G. Meeks
  • G. Whittington

Abstract

This article provides a long-term demographic analysis of the principal members of the population of companies quoted on the UK stock exchanges in 1948. Motivated by theories of natural selection and of corporate governance, it traces the survival records of the 1948 population over the biblical ‘threescore years and ten’ to 2018. Of the population of 1513 companies in 1948, only 19 survived for the full seventy years. The survival rate, as captured by the half-life of companies in the population, is remarkably stable over the period. As well as charting death rates over time, the study explores the causes of death – takeover, failure, etc. Also it analyses the relationship between survival and the characteristics of the firm and its environment.

Suggested Citation

  • G. Meeks & G. Whittington, 2023. "Death on the stock exchange: The fate of the 1948 population of large UK quoted companies, 1948–2018," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 65(4), pages 679-698, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:bushst:v:65:y:2023:i:4:p:679-698
    DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2021.1893696
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00076791.2021.1893696
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00076791.2021.1893696?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:bushst:v:65:y:2023:i:4:p:679-698. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FBSH20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.