eco

Most of the money from the 2002 bipartisan farm bill will go to the __________ of farmers.

10% of wealthiest

A study published in 2001 showed that more than one-fourth of the occupants of rent-controlled apartments in San Francisco had household incomes of ____________ a year.

100,000

Directly or indirectly, about ______ of the American population are investors in corporate stocks.

50%

What has been the most clearly positive benefit of American anti-trust laws according to the author?

A blanket prohibition against collusion to fix prices

In China, the number of people living on a dollar a day or less fell from 374 million - one third of the country's population in 1990 - to 128 million in 2004, now just 10 percent of a growing population. What made nearly a quarter of a billion Chinese better off?

A change in economic policy.

One of the factors in California's periodic water crises is that California farmers' use of water is subsidized heavily. For example, farmers in California's Imperial Valley pay $15 for the same water that costs $400 in Los Angeles. What is the result of the subsidy?

Agriculture, which accounts for less than 2 percent of the state's output, consumes 43 percent of its water.

The Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) was once the only producer of virgin ingot aluminum in the United States. The price of aluminum went down over the years to a fraction of what it had been before Alcoa was formed. Which of the following is true?

Alcoa was prosecuted under the anti-trust laws and lost the case despite the fact that the price of aluminum went down.

Which of the following is "needed" for our survival, regardless of its quantity?

All of the above are not always needed for certain levels of quantity.

The wide gap between the unemployment rates of black and white teenage males dates from the escalation of the minimum wage and the spread of its coverage in the 1950s. The usual explanations of higher unemployment among black teenagers - less education, lack of skills, racism - cannot explain their rising unemployment.

All of the handicaps were worse during the earlier period when black teenage unemployment was much lower.

When Kodachrome was the leading color film in the world, it was also what was aptly called "the most complicated film there is to process." Since Eastman Kodak had a huge stake in maintaining the reputation of Kodachrome, it sought to protect that reputation by processing all Kodachrome itself, so it sold the processing and the film together, rather than risk having other processors turn out substandard results that could be seen by consumers as deficiencies of the film. Yet an anti-trust lawsuit forced Kodak to sell the processing and the film separately, in order not to foreclose that market to other film processors. Why did the author think that Eastman Kodak was trying to protect the reputation of Kodachrome than to foreclose the processing market?

All other Kodak films were sold without processing included.

What is the way to tell whether the California produce is worth what it costs to grow?

Allowing all the costs to be paid by California farmers.

Far more resources were used to produce a given amount of output in the Soviet economy as compared to a price-coordinated economic system such as that in Japan, Germany, and other market economies. According to economists, Nikolai Shmelev and Vladimir Popov, the Soviet economy, to make one ton of copper, it used about 1,000 kilowatt hours of electrical energy, as against 300 in West Germany. To produce one ton of cement, it used twice the amount of energy that Japan did. What did the Soviet Union lack?

An economic system that made efficient use of its resources

An extreme example of how misleading market share statistics can be was the case of a local movie chain that showed 100 percent of all the first-run movies in Las Vegas. It was prosecuted as a monopoly. By the time the case reached the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals:

Another movie chain was showing more first-run movies than the "monopolist" that was being prosecuted.

As less percentage of total income went to the bottom 20 percent of households (from 4 percent to 3 percent) between 1985 and 2001,

As less percentage of total income went to the bottom 20 percent of households (from 4 percent to 3 percent) between 1985 and 2001,

An economy in which knowledge and insights have decisive advantages over social status or political power in the competition of the marketplace is an economy which itself has great advantages in creating a higher standard of living for the population at large.

Because it is a society which can tap all kinds of talents from all segments of its population.

What system made tractor drivers in the Soviet Union to plow more deeply at the edge of the field than in the center?

Because of the system of paying the drivers on the basis of hectares plowed, it was to the drivers' advantage to cover as much territory as possible.

Many corporations that once dominated their fields have fallen behind in the face of changes or have even gone bankrupt. Pan American Airways, which pioneered in commercial flights across the Atlantic and the Pacific in the first half of the twentieth century, went out of business in the late twentieth century, as a result of increased competition among airlines. What policy led to the increased competition among airlines?

Deregulation of the airline industry

Even though the Garden of Eden was a system for the production and distribution of goods and services, why was it not an economy?

Everything was available in unlimited abundance.

According to The Economist magazine, the government of India provides almost free electricity and water to farmers. According to the author, what are the consequences of the policy? Choose all that apply.

Farmers plant too much water guzzling rice. Water tables in the Punjab are dropping fast.

What is one of the side effects mentioned in the textbook of unreliable deliveries in centrally planned economies such as the Soviet Union and China?

Firms had to keep more goods in inventory.

Many have argued that a separation of ownership and control permits corporate managements to run these enterprises in their own interests, at the expense of the interests of the stockholders. Certainly the massive and highly publicized corporate scandals of the early twenty-first century confirm the potential for fraud and abuse. However, it is not clear whether the limited liability corporation is any more prone to such things than other kinds of organizations. Why?

Fraud and abuse have also occurred in non-corporate enterprises.

What have provoked special outcries about CEOs are the severance packages in the millions of dollars for executives who are let go because of their own failures. What is the economic justification for the severance packages?

It is less costly to pay the severance packages, and without them, the companies have a hard time finding good CEOs.

The author states, "Nearly a hundred years later, with the Russian economy growing at less than two percent annually, the same lesson was learned anew by another Russian leader. What is the lesson? Briefly state it in your own words.

It is not easy to run a business and, for an economy to grow, we need the knowledge and skills of business people.

When there are local famines in Third World countries, what is not uncommon regarding food supplied by international agencies to the national government?

It is not uncommon for it to sit spoiling on the docks while people are dying of hunger inland.

The technological rivalry between Intel and AMD has had large and often painful economic consequences for both of them. AMD had losses of more than a billion dollars in 2002 and its stock lost four-fifths of its value. Four years later, the price of Intel stock fell by 20 percent in just three months and Intel announced that it would lay off 1,000 managers, as its profits fell by 57 percent. All this desperate competition took place in an industry where Intel sells more than 80 percent of the computer chips in the world. According to the author, was this good for society when the competition between the two companies had painful economic consequences for both of them?

It was good for society because it was very beneficial to computer users as they got to use the computers that were cheaper and faster.

South Africa

It was more cost-efficient or profitable to hire low-wage black workers and rent to blacks.

Agricultural output per acre in Europe is much higher than that in the United States, but output per agricultural worker is much higher in the United States than in Europe. Why?

Land is more plentiful and labor is more scarce in the U.S.

An argument against low-wage employers making workers worse off does not make sense. If low-wage employers make workers worse off than they would be otherwise, then it is hard to imagine why workers would work for them. Some may say, "Because they have no alternative." What does the statement, "they have no alternative" imply though?

Low-wage employers make workers better off.

What fact do complaints about the separation of ownership and control often overlook?

Many people want the rewards of investing without the headaches of managing. Owners of a corporation's stock do not want the time-consuming responsibilities that go with control.

Dozens of studies of the effects of minimum wages in the United States and dozens more studies of the effects of minimum wages in various countries in Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, Indonesia, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were reviewed in 2006 by two economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research. What did they conclude?

Minimum wages reduce employment among low-skilled workers.

Some countries recognized the negative effects of minimum wages and instituted policies to alleviate some of the reduced unemployment prospects. What is (are) the example(s) of those mentioned in the section, Differential Impact. Choose all that apply.

New Zealand exempted teenagers from the coverage of its minimum wage law until 1994. Some countries in Europe set lower minimum wage rates for teenagers than for adult.

While gross statistics show large income differences among American racial and ethnic groups, finer breakdowns usually show much smaller differences. For example, black, white, and Hispanic males of the same age (29) and IQ (100) have all had average annual incomes within a thousand dollars of one another. Given that the overall average income of white males is higher than that of black or Hispanic males, what can you say about the average age of white males compared to that of black or Hispanic males with the same IQs?

On average, white males are older than black or Hispanic males with the same IQs.

Too often a false contrast is made between the impersonal marketplace and the supposedly compassionate policies of various government programs. But both systems face the same scarcity of resources and both systems make choices within the constraints of that scarcity. What is the difference then?

One system involves each individual making choices for himself or herself, while the other system involves a small number of people making choices for millions of others.

The degree on income inequality over a lifetime is not the same as the degree of income inequality in a given year. A study in New Zealand found that the degree of income inequality over a working lifetime there was less than the degree of inequality in any given year during those lifetimes. In other words, lifetime earning differences were not as large as what the data in any given year shows. Why were lifetime earning differences not as large as the ones in any given year?

People often move from low income brackets to high income brackets as they become older. People often move from high income brackets to low income brackets after they retire.

in the early twentieth century, both Sears and Montgomery Ward were reluctant to being operating out of stores, after decades of great success selling exclusively from their mail order catalogs. What made them become chain stores in the 1920s?

Reduced profits caused by competition from other chain stores.

Despite a severe housing shortage in New York, San Francisco, and other cities with rent control, a nationwide survey in 2003 found the vacancy rates in buildings used by business and industry to be nearly 12 percent, the highest in more than two decades. Why?

Residential housing was under rent control while business buildings were not.

Politicians, journalists, and academicians are almost continuously pointing out unmet needs in our society that should be supplied by some government program or other. Most of these are things that most of us wish our society had more of. What is wrong with that?

Resources are always scarce and have alternative uses, so there will always be unmet needs.

Before federal minimum wage laws were instituted in the 1930s,

SL, SL, SH, ML, S, L, half and one third

The last President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, is said to have asked British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: How do you see to it that people get food? What was her answer?

She didn't, but prices did it.

Which of the following is true in the United States?

Since there weren't many genuine monopolies, the government became very creative in defining monopolies and prosecuting many firms as monopolies or developing monopolies.

During the ear of the Soviet Union and its Cold War competition with the United States, the Soviets used to boast of the fact that an average Soviet boxcar move more freight per year than an average American box car. According to the author, what did this fact show us?

Soviet railroads lacked the abundant capital of the American railroad industry and Soviet labor had less valuable alternative uses of its time than did American labor.

When many African colonies achieved national independence in the 1960s, a famous bet was made between the president of Ghana and the president of the neighboring Ivory Coast as to which country would be more prosperous in the years ahead. At that time, Ghana was not only more prosperous than the Ivory Coast, it had more natural resources. Which country became more prosperous by 1982? Why?

The Ivory Coast became more prosperous because it was committed to a freer market economy.

As of the year 2000, just 6 percent of the unemployed in the United States were unemployed for a year or more. However, the share of Americans who remained unemployed for a year or longer rose to 31.3 percent in 2011. According to the author, what caused the increase?

The U.S. Congress extended the period during which unemployment compensation would be paid.

The Far Eastern Economic Review reported: "Through decades of state-planned development, nearly all big Chinese firms transported their own goods, however inefficiently." Although theoretically, firms specializing in transportation operate more efficiently, that did not happen. What was the reason?

The absence of financial incentives

In the famous anti-trust case against Microsoft at the turn of the century, the market was defined as that for computer operating systems for stand-alone personal computers using microchips of the kind manufactured by Intel. This left out not only the operating systems running Apple computers but also other operating systems such as those produced by Sun Microsystems for multiple computers or the Linux system for stand-alone computers. What is the actual evidence given in the section that Microsoft Windows had a substitute in the eyes of consumers, according to the author?

The city government of Munich switched from using Microsoft Windows to Linux.

If state regulatory commissions set electricity rates based on "average" costs of generating electricity, then when there is a higher demand or a shorter supply within the state, out-of-state suppliers may be unwilling to sell electricity.

The costs of generating the additional electricity from standby units are likely to be higher than the regulated prices that are based on the average costs.

The values of natural resources per capita in Uruguay and Venezuela are several times what they are in Japan and Switzerland, but real income per capita in Japan and Switzerland is more than double that of Uruguay and several times that of Venezuela. What is the point the author tries to make with this example? Choose the best answer.

The decisions about the use of land, labor, capital and other resources and their consequences can be more important than the resources themselves.

In the late twentieth century, a producer of medicine for colds was fearful that the public had bought too much of his product during a flu epidemic in India. Why did the producer have to be fearful for selling his product to the public who wanted his medicine badly?

The government of India imposed limits on how much each company could produce.

At one time in the Soviet Union, all the distribution centers were filled with moleskin. Industry was unable to use them all and they often rot in warehouses before they could be processed. Fundamentally, what caused the surplus?

The government raised the price it would pay for moleskin.

When a crop failure in a given region creates a sudden increase in demand for imports of food into that region, food suppliers elsewhere rush to be the first to get there, in order to capitalize on the high prices that will prevail until more supplies arrive and drive food prices back down again through competition. According to the author, what does this mean from the standpoint of the hungry people in that region in comparison with a humanitarian aid by government? Choose all that apply.

The hungry people would get food faster. Greedy suppliers would do a better job supplying food than government employees.

During the Stalin era in the Soviet Union, there was at one time a severe shortage of mining equipment, but the manager of a factory producing such machines kept them in storage after they were built, rather than sending them out to the mines, where they were sorely needed. Why was the manager's behavior rational?

The manufacturer had machines with a wrong color Disobeying official orders in any respect was a serious offense.

Ultimately, to society as a whole, what is the cost of any good or service?

The other things that could have been produced with the resources that are used to produce the good or service.

According to the author, what is the fundamental reason why many people made false predictions that we were "running out" of various natural resources based on?

The predictions were based on confusing the economically available current supply at current prices with the ultimate physical supply in the earth.

When a large employer goes bankrupt in a small community, or simply moves away to another region or country, many of the business' former employees may decide to move away themselves - and when their numerous homes go on sale in the same small area at the same time, the prices of those houses are likely to be driven down by competition. But this does not mean that people are selling their homes for less than their "real" value. What underlying fact do the lower housing prices reflect? Choose all that apply.

The value of living in that particular community has declined. There were fewer job opportunities. There is no fixed "real" value of a house.

A feature article in the New York Times laid out the economic woes and worries of middle-class Americans - one of the most affluent groups of human beings ever to inhabit this planet. Although this story included a picture of a middle-class American family in their own swimming pool, the main headline read: "The American Middle, Just Getting By." What does the author try to explain with this example?

There has never been enough to satisfy everyone completely.

Communal living in Israeli kibbutz was based on its members' collectively producing and supplying each other with goods and services, without resort to money or prices. However, supplying electricity and food without charging prices led to a situation where people often did not bother to turn off electric lights during the day and members would bring friends from outside the kibbutz to join them for meals.

There was a sharp drop in the consumption of both. There was no fixed quantity of "need" for food and electricity.

Competing government institutions performing the same function are often referred to negatively as "needless duplication." According to the author, are they needless duplication?

They are not because competing institutions force each other to be efficient.

In the Soviet Union, a fascination with economies of scale and a disregard of diseconomies of scale led to what form of enterprises?

They became the largest enterprises in the world.

A large number of successful businessmen have gone on to high administrative posts in the national government. According to Nobel Prizewinning economist George J. Stigler, were they successful? Why or why not?

They were not. They were surrounded and overpowered by informed and entrenched subordinates. They were not. They had to deal with legislators who can be relentless in their demands.

If vast new rich iron ore deposits were suddenly discovered somewhere, perhaps no more than one percent of the population would be aware of it. How would the vast majority of people who have no idea about the discovery benefit from it?

They would all benefit from lower prices of the products made of steel.

What was one of the great appeals of socialism mentioned in the textbook, especially back when it was simply an idealistic theory without any concrete examples in the real world?

To eliminate profits to make things cheaper for the poor.

Throughout the history of anti-trust prosecutions, there has been an unresolved confusion between two things.

What is detrimental to competition and what is detrimental to competitors. What is beneficial to the consumer.

What made people count certain sands in Venezuela and Canada as oil reserves in the early twenty-first century?

What made people count certain sands in Venezuela and Canada as oil reserves in the early twenty-first century?

What simple economic principle is ignored by those who underestimate the costs in the previous question?

When the price of a good/service is lower, people buy more of it.

Competition is the key to the operation of a price-coordinated economy. Where does it cause capital, labor, and other resources to flow toward? Choose all that apply.

Where their rates of return are highest Where the unsatisfied demand is greatest

Why do industries usually consist of a number of firms, instead of one giant, super-efficient monopoly?

With increasing size, eventually the diseconomies of scale outweighs the economies of scale.

Which of the following is not likely to happen under rent control?

all above

When automobiles began to displace horses and buggies, many manufacturers of saddles, horseshoes, and carriages were forced to shut down. In a sense, it is unfair because innovations were as unforeseen by most of the people who benefited as by most of the people who were made worse off. But creating more fairness to those producers would be also unfair to _____________ which include everyone.

consumers

The net result of widespread availability of newspapers has been that many local "monopoly" newspapers had difficulties even surviving financially, much less making any extra profits associated with monopoly. Anti-trust policies:

continued to impose restrictions on mergers of local newspapers.

A study shows that when Wal-Mart begins selling groceries in a community, the average price of groceries in that community:

falls by 6 to 12 percent.

Economics is something that tells you how to make money or run a business or predict the ups and downs of the stock market.

false

In an economy based on prices, profits and losses, for resources to be allocated efficiently, most people, including the country's political leaders, need to have the knowledge and insight to understand what is happening in the economy as a whole.

false

Scarcity and shortage mean the same thing in economics.

false

The anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft accused it of jacking up the prices of its Windows operating system.

false

The problem with central planning is that some particular planners have made some particular mistakes.

false

When there is a shortage of a product, there is always less of it either absolutely or relative to the number of consumers.

false

Whether a given market is competitive or not can always be measured by the number of competitors existing in a given industry at a given time. True

false

High prices are the fundamental reason why we cannot all live in beach-front houses.

false High prices simply reflect the reality that there are not nearly enough beach-front homes to go around. High prices simply reflect the reality that many people want to live in beach-front houses.

Anheuser-Busch spends millions of dollars a year advertising Budweiser and its other beers and its advising cost per barrel of beer is more than that of its competitors, Coors and Miller.

false because its huge volume of sales reduces its advertising cost per barrel of beer.

Racial discrimination tends to be { smaller } when minimum wages are set artificially higher by the government above the level that would exist through supply and demand.

greater

Human beings are going to make mistakes in any kind of economic system. In a feudal economy or a socialist economy, leaders can continue to make the same mistakes indefinitely. According to the author, which of the following is the fundamental reason?

he consequences of the mistakes are paid by others in the form of a lower standard of living.

Price controls almost invariably produce black markets where prices are not only higher than the legally permitted prices, but also higher than they would be in a free market. According to the author, why would the prices in black markets be higher than they would be in a free market?

he legal risks must be compensated.

What caused sharp upturns in the economies in India, Germany, China, New Zealand, South Korea, and Sri Lanka?

hey freed their economies from many government controls and relied more on prices to allocate resources.

Economies of scale means that costs per unit of output _________ as the amount of output ____________.

in dec and dec in

A study in San Francisco showed that 49 percent of the city's rent-controlled apartments had only a single occupant while a severe housing shortage in the city had thousands of people living considerable distances away and making long commutes to their jobs. A Census report showed likewise that 46 percent of all households in Manhattan, where nearly half of all apartments are under some form of rent control, are occupied by only one person - compared to 27 percent nationwide. These are examples of:

inefficient use of resources caused by rent control.

When more and more Americans began to live in urban communities, it was not a secret, but not everyone noticed such gradual changes and even fewer had the insight to understand their implications for retail selling. Who noticed the change and understood the implications for retail selling?

jc penny and robert wood

If everything were made affordable by government decree, it would tend to cause _____ output to be produced.

less

A front-page news story in The Arizona Republic began, "Greed drove metropolitan Phoenix's home prices and sales to new records in 2005. Fear is driving the market price this year." a. If this were true, lower prices would imply { less greed }. b. The answer to part a { does not } make sense?

less greed does not

A detailed analysis of U.S. Census data showed that there were 40 million people in the bottom 20 percent of households in 2002 but 69 million people in the top 20 percent of households. This could lead to misinterpreting the data on the quintiles of household income brackets because when there are more people in the top 20 percent bracket, the income inequality is ___________ the one when there are an equal number of people in the top 20 percent bracket.

less serious

Human beings are going to make mistakes in any kind of economic system. The key question is: What kinds of incentives and constrains will force them to correct their own mistakes. In a price-coordinated economy, what forces producers to stop their inefficient use of resources?

losses

The fact that businesses have largely displaced many other ways of organizing the production of goods and services suggests that the cost advantages of businesses are considerable. What are the cost advantages reflected in?

low prices of g and s

In general, what is smarter than the smartest of its individual participants?

market

In a world where it is common for particular companies to rise and fall over time, anti-trust lawyers can take years to build a case against a company that is at its peak -and about to head over the hill. A major anti-trust case can take a decade or more to be brought to a final conclusion. ________ often react much more quickly than that against monopolies and cartels, as early twentieth century trusts found when giant retailers like Sears, Montgomery Ward and A & P outflanked them long before the government could make a legal case against them.

markets

After more than half the city's housing supply was destroyed in just three days after the great San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906,

no shortage of housing

A policy intended to make housing affordable for the poor (i.e., rent control) has had the net effect of shifting resources away from the building of:

non-luxury apartments for the poor.

Why did Italy in the seventeenth century, India in the eighteenth century, France after the French Revolution, Russia after the Bolshevik revolution, and a number of African countries after independence in the 1960s experience hunger and starvation?

price ceilings

Zimbabwe's diet

price ceilings

In a free market economic system, what forces producers to produce what consumers want and to stop producing what consumers don't want? Choose all that apply.

profit and loss

When rent control ended after the war, the housing shortage:

quickly disappeared even before there was time for new housing to be built.

If our concern is with the economic well-being of flesh-and-blood human beings, as distinguished from statistical comparisons between income brackets, then we need to look at:

real income per capita

During and immediately after the Second World War, many Americans looking for an apartment had to spend weeks or months in an often futile search for a place to live, or else resorted to bribes to get landlords to move them to the top of waiting lists. Meanwhile, they doubled up with relatives, slept in garages or used other makeshift living arrangements, such as buying military surplus Quonset huts or old trolley cars to live in. All of these happened because:

rent control laws kept the housing prices artificially lower than they would have been.

When people project that there will be a shortage of engineers or teachers or food in the years ahead, we will probably not face a shortage of any of those over time in a free market economy. That is because: If there are shortages of engineers, teachers, and food today, the prices of those will { rise } and { more } quantities of those will be supplied in the future.

rise more

The basic rationale for anti-trust laws is to prevent monopoly and other conditions which allow prices to __________ where they would be in a free and competitive marketplace. Most of the famous anti-trust cases in the United States have involved some business that charged ________ prices than its competitors. Often it has been complaints from these competitors which caused the government to act.

rise above and lower

A middleman in a Third World country:

saves farmers' time, especially during the harvest season.

Some Soviet economists were aware of the role of prices from having seen what happened when prices were not allowed to perform that role. But economists were not in charge of the Soviet economy. Political leaders were. Under Stalin, what happened to many economists who said things he did not want to hear?

shot

At one time, shipping blue jeans within the state of Texas from El Paso to Dallas cost about 40 percent more than shipping the same jeans internationally from Taiwan to Dallas.

state regulations

What did Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals point out as the key to monopoly?

the ability to keep others out

When people who are perfectly willing to drive taxis at fares that consumers are willing to pay are nevertheless prevented from doing so by artificial restrictions on the number of taxi licenses issued,

the economy as a whole loses.

For a society as a whole, money is just an artificial device to get real things done. How does the author convince us of it? He simply points out that:

the government cannot make us all rich by simply printing more money.

In the normal course of events, people's demand for housing space changes over a lifetime. Their demand for space usually increases when they get married and have children. But years later, after the children have grown up and moved away, the parents' demand for space may decrease. These take place because:

the individuals compare their needs with the prices (rents) and make decisions.

Politicians who say that they will "bring down the cost of medical care" almost invariably mean that they will bring down:

the prices paid for medical car.

What is the definition of economics used in the textbook?

the study of the use of scarcer resources which have alternative uses.

What determines whether a country is poverty stricken or prosperous?

the volume of goods and services

When the fast food revolution burst forth in the 1950s, existing leaders in restaurant franchises such as Howard Johnson were very unsuccessful in trying to compete with upstarts like McDonald's in the fast food segment of the market. Why was it unsuccessful?

too slow

The limited knowledge and insights of the leaders become decisive barriers to the progress of the whole economy in an economy where political leaders control economic decisions.

true

American corporate law severely limits shareholders' rights. So does Japanese, German and French corporate law. In contrast, the United Kingdom seems a paradise for shareholders. In the U.K., shareholders can call a meeting to remove the board of directors at any time. They can pass resolutions telling boards to take certain actions, they are entitled to vote on dividends and CEO pay, and they can force a board to accept a hostile takeover bid the board would prefer to reject. The economic performance of British corporations is:

unimpressive. Only one of the world's 30 largest corporations is British.