Business groups are a-changing'

In the age of open markets, the hold that big business groups used to have over the US has eased into a smattering of smaller, closely controlled corporates, which take care not to channel all resources into one sector. Not what the business groups of yore would have done, say researchers Eugene Kandel, Konstantin Kosenko, Randall Morck and Yishay Yafeh. In a study on business groups such as Western Union, GE, Dupont and Rockefeller between 1930 and 1950, they observed that most exhibited a pyramid structure and worked in the public utilities sector, providing electricity, gas and transport. Their replacement with modern corporate groups happened by the 1950s, after a sustained change in government policy.