TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hilt,Eric
TI  - Incentives in Corporations: Evidence from the American Whaling Industry
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10403
PY  - 2004
Y2  - April 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10403
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10403.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Eric Hilt
Wellesley College
Department of Economics
106 Central Street
Wellesley, MA 02481
Tel: 781/283-2986
Fax: 781/283-2177
E-Mail: ehilt@wellesley.edu
AB  - In the 1830s, when whaling was a prosperous American industry, a number of whaling corporations were chartered. All of them were short-lived. This paper analyzes the failure of corporations in American whaling, and argues that the corporate form was unable to create the incentives requisite for success in the industry. Most nineteenth-century whaling ventures were owned by a small number of local investors, and were configured to provide powerful incentives for their managers. The effect of the corporate form on productivity is analyzed using a newly-collected panel dataset of 874 whaling voyages. Many whaling corporations were managed by individuals who had previously (or would subsequently) manage ventures with the usual ownership structure. Using an individual-fixed-effects framework, a strong negative effect of the corporate form on productivity is identified.
ER  -