OWNERSHIP CHANGE, CAPITAL ACCESS, AND ECONOMIC-GROWTH

Walter Adams and James W. Brock's Dangerous Pursuits offers convention al wisdom regarding the alleged evils of the corporate restructuring a nd financial innovations of the 1980s. Adams and Brock disregard how e conomic regulations enacted in the 1930s and 1940s led to passive inve stors and managerial control that furthered conglomerate acquisitions strategies of the 1960s and 1970s. This situation was undone in the 19 80s with the rise of active investors and entrepreneurs who attempted to wrest control from established managers and companies so as to focu s corporations on single lines of business, increasing efficiency and performance. The employment, productivity, consumer, and budgetary imp acts of mergers and acquisitions were much more positive than Adams an d Brock allow.