The City of London Post-Brexit: Can Dual-Class Shares Be a Game-Changer?

SYNOPSIS This study examines how family firms' unique ownership structure and agency problems affect their selection of industry-specialist auditors. Using data from Standard & Poor's (S&P) 1500 firms, the results show that family firms are more likely to appoint industry-specialist auditors than non-family firms, which suggests that family firms have strong incentives to signal the quality of financial reporting. Additional analysis indicates that due to the potential entrenchment problems, family firms with family member CEOs or with dual-class shares have even a higher tendency to hire industry-specialist auditors to signal their disclosure quality.

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Francis Woodleke’s Window

10.1093/oso/9780198798149.003.0005 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Shannon McSheffrey

Keyword(s):

Urban Environment ◽

Drainage Channels ◽

City Of London ◽

The City

A royal enquiry was commissioned in the mid-1530s to investigate the boundaries of the sanctuary of St Martin le Grand. This enquiry was precipitated not by a problem with felonious sanctuary seekers, but instead by a conflict between the City of London and Dutch-born shoemakers making and selling their wares in St Martin’s precinct despite prohibitions against immigrant labour. The testimony in the enquiry uncovers the complexity of jurisdictional rights woven into the idea of sanctuary: battles over labour, trade, and immigration were conflated with asylum for accused felons in both attacks and defences of sanctuary privilege. The witnesses’ statements also reveal how the boundaries of the sanctuary—often marked only by convention or by drainage channels in the street—functioned in the urban environment.

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Introduction

10.1093/oso/9780198804116.003.0007 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Aled Davies

Keyword(s):

Industrial Development ◽

The Political ◽

Social Democratic ◽

Financial Centre ◽

Conservative Government ◽

The Social ◽

Post War ◽

City Of London ◽

The Relationship ◽

The City

This book is a study of the political economy of Britain’s chief financial centre, the City of London, in the two decades prior to the election of Margaret Thatcher’s first Conservative government in 1979. The primary purpose of the book is to evaluate the relationship between the financial sector based in the City, and the economic strategy of social democracy in post-war Britain. In particular, it focuses on how the financial system related to the social democratic pursuit of national industrial development and modernization, and on how the norms of social democratic economic policy were challenged by a variety of fundamental changes to the City that took place during the period....

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Conclusion

10.1093/oso/9780198804116.003.0006 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Aled Davies

Keyword(s):

International Monetary System ◽

The State ◽

Real Economy ◽

Social Democratic ◽

Monetary System ◽

1960S And 1970S ◽

Post War ◽

The 1960S ◽

City Of London ◽

The City

The aim of this book has been to evaluate the relationship between Britain’s financial sector, based in the City of London, and the social democratic economic strategy of post-war Britain. The central argument presented in the book was that changes to the City during the 1960s and 1970s undermined a number of the key post-war social democratic techniques designed to sustain and develop a modern industrial economy. Financial institutionalization weakened the state’s ability to influence investment, and the labour movement was unable successfully to integrate the institutionalized funds within a renewed social democratic economic agenda. The post-war settlement in banking came under strain in the 1960s as new banking and credit institutions developed that the state struggled to manage. This was exacerbated by the decision to introduce competition among the clearing banks in 1971, which further weakened the state’s capacity to control the provision and allocation of credit to the real economy. The resurrection of an unregulated global capital market, centred on London, overwhelmed the capacity of the state to pursue domestic-focused macroeconomic policies—a problem worsened by the concurrent collapse of the Bretton Woods international monetary system. Against this background, the fundamental social democratic assumption that national prosperity could be achieved only through industry-led growth and modernization was undermined by an effective campaign to reconceptualize Britain as a fundamentally financial and commercial nation with the City of London at its heart....

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