We test asset pricing theory using the Bazacle company of Toulouse, the earliest documented shareholding corporation. We collect share prices and net dividends from its foundation in 1372 to its nationalization in 1946. We find a real average dividend yield of 5% per annum and no long-term price...

This paper tests whether very diversified and patient investors, also known as universal owners, tend to vote in favor of shareholder resolutions instructing corporations to reduce or communicate on the negative externalities they produce. Our sample includes 213 US fund families that voted on...

We exploit unique archives extending over six centuries to trace the development of corporate governance mechanisms that emerged in response to problems inherent in organizing, capitalizing and sustaining large-scale business enterprises. Two Toulouse milling concerns with antecedents in the...