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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2011
The study of business incorporations was undertaken with several purposes in mind. Incorporations—while they may reflect other things in a more or less significant manner—can give a very good picture of one stage of enterpreneurial activity. The large entrepreneur is, of course, better represented in the data on corporations than is the small businessman; and the entrepreneur of recent years is better represented than the entrepreneur of an earlier date, since at that time the corporation was less widely used. Nevertheless, one who studies data on newly chartered companies can see the development of the economy from an unused standpoint. Moreover, since entrepreneurs' ideas about business projects ought to be reflected in the number and character of business incorporations, a study of charters should add to our knowledge of the operation of business cycles. It should also lead to a better understanding of the corporation itself, since new light would be thrown on the history of state competition for the business of creating the corporations of this country. State rivalry for the chartering business has been a powerful factor in moulding the corporation to the changing needs of our economy. This adaptation might—or might not—have been brought about as efficiently by some other device, but that is a problem in itself.
2 This is in the nature of a preliminary report upon the study. The data presented relate solely to the United States, but it is planned to make comparisons with foreign material at a future date. In examining that which follows, it must be borne in mind continually that on every topic more work must be done.
3 For a study of the control of capital issues during the war, see Willoughby, Woodbury, The Capital Issues Committee and War Finance Corporation (Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science) (Baltimore, 1934)Google Scholar.
4 This gives a smoother line than would the raw data and it also eliminates fairly well the seasonal movement which is often large.
5 Macgregor, D. H., Enterprise, Purpose & Profit (Oxford, 1934), particularly 82 and 83Google Scholar.
6 Difficulty in compiling authorized capital stock figures arises put of the presence of non-par shares. When these shares have had to be included in the data they have been taken in at the par value that the tax laws of a given state indicate as the equivalent. Many states, for example, tax non-par shares in the same way as shares of $100 par value. For such states non-par shares have been treated as $100 par value shares.
7 The outstanding cases of the disguise of the purpose of incorporation probably belong to the period in which special charters had to be procured. It was then often highly advantageous from the standpoint of the incorporators to avoid the risks of debate in the state legislatures about the various provisions of charters.
8 The investment manuals and the Commercial and Financial Chronicle were sometimes used in the industrial classifications described below.
9 Central Statistical Board, Standard Industrial Classification (Washington, D. C., 1939–1940), I (parts 1–4) and II (parts 1–3).
10 The basic 181 (or 183) classes that were used were thus not of equal scope. Roughly 2 percent were one-digit classes. Agriculture, construction contractors, and a nonallocable class were the only one-digit categories used in grouping the Pennsylvania companies. Of course, figures for other one-digit classes, such as mining or manufacturing, can be built up by combining some of the basic 181 classes; but that is a different matter. The 181 categories give the data in the most minute classification that is feasible. Twenty percent of the classes were two-digit ones. The manufacture of paper and the manufacture of tobacco—both major subdivisions of the one-digit category, manufacturing—were among the two-digit classes employed. Seventy-eight percent of the classes were three-digit ones. This type of class is illustrated by the manufacture of paint, the manufacture of soap, and the manufacture of drugs. Each of these three categories is a subdivision of the manufacture of chemicals (a two-digit class) which in turn is a major division of the broad class, manufacturing.
11 The sample for each year contained 225 companies. The details of this sample study will be published later.
12 Falkner, Roland P., “Statistics of Private Corporations,” Publications of the American Statistical Association, II, 50–67 (new series, no. 10, June, 1890)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 The Pennsylvania data relate to companies supplying natural gas to the public; producing units that may have distributed gas to the ultimate consumer were classified as mining companies. The data for the years 1875–1887, inclusive, are estimated, not actual. The method of estimation will be described at a later date when the complete data are published. Falkner's figures on Ohio gas companies probably include both the producer and the distributor.
14 Williams, Albert Jr., U. S. Geological Survey, Mineral Resources of the United States, Calendar Years 1883 and 1884 (Washington, D. C., 1885), 240–242Google Scholar.
15 Orton, Edward, First Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Ohio (Third organization), (Columbus, Ohio), 105Google Scholar.
16 Ibid., 229.
17 Companies formed to supply water exclusively for manufacturing or power purposes were not included here.
18 For information on the Pennsylvania water situation see: Report of the Water Supply Commission of Pennsylvania, 1907 (Harrisburg, 1908), 14, 15, and 16; Message of the Governor of Pennsylvania to the General Assembly, January 3, 1905 ([n. p.], 1905), 15; Message of the Governor of Pennsylvania to the General Assembly, Extraordinary Session, January 15, 1906 (Harrisburg, 1906), 1; Penna. Laws, 1901, no. 177, 270–271 and ibid., 1905, no. 109 and no. 236.
There is a slight difference between my figures on water company charters and those of the Water Supply Commission set forth in the Report cited above. The difference arises primarily from the fact that the data of Chart V exclude companies supplying water for manufacturing and power purposes.
19 Penna. Laws, 1874, no. 32 (April 29, 1874), sec. 34, clauses 1 and 3. See also news item entitled “Pennsylvania Properties Consolidated” in The Electrical World, 61, no. 17 (April 26, 1913), 904Google Scholar.
20 For an example, see news item entitled “Will ask charters for twenty lighting companies in Pennsylvania,” Ibid., 903.
21 Penna. Laws, 1913, no. 854.
22 The Pennsylvania building and loan association data for the years 1875–1887 are estimated, not actual. The method of estimation will be described at a later date when the complete data are published.
23 Cf. a series on building permits, Burns, Arthur F., Production Trends in the United States since 1870 (Publications of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., No. 23) (New York, 1934)Google Scholar.
24 Cf. English abortive company figures of about 30 and 27 percent for the periods 1893–1902 and 1902–1913, respectively, and about 25 percent for “recent years.” Macgregor, D. H., Enterprise, Purpose & Profit (Oxford, 1934), 101–102Google Scholar.
25 Cf. Ibid., 102.