The Bank of England and the ‘prehistory’ of corporate governance

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6043697
AutoresAndrew Johnston (0000-0001-5352-9563, School of Law, University of Warwick, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen67
Número5
Páginas1221-1246
Fecha de publicación2025-07-04
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaBusiness History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0007-6791 • E-ISSN: 1743-7938
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00076791.2024.2319343
OpenAlexW4392796647
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas37

Most accounts of the evolution of corporate governance in the UK take the Cadbury Report of 1992 as ground zero.This article draws on archival research to explore the work done from 1970 onwards by the Bank of England to institutionalise non-executive directors (NEDs) and investor engagement.It shows that many of the norms at the heart of the Cadbury Report of 1992 were already fully formed within the Bank by the early 1970s, and were then disseminated informally through contacts with City financial institutions and persistent efforts to identify the right kind of people to act as NEDs.The Cadbury Report was a formalisation of pre-existing norms rather than a rupture with what came before.More generally, the article highlights the influence of the idea of shareholders as 'owners' and the path dependent nature of the norms that now form the basis of corporate governance codes around the world

Archaeology · Business · Corporate governance · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Financial system · Political science · Prehistory · Accounting · Finance · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Political and Economic history of UK and US