Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/340163 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2026
Series/Report no.: 
SAFE Working Paper No. 476
Publisher: 
Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, Frankfurt a. M.
Abstract: 
This article advances a new perspective on corporate purpose, grounded in the institutional conditions under which corporate privileges are granted. Using a novel dataset of historical UK royal charters and a mixed-methods empirical strategy, the study shows that early corporations articulated specific, enforceable, and public-facing purpose clauses because incorporation was a scarce privilege that allowed the Crown to impose obligations as a "asking price" for the benefits of the corporate form. Machine-learning evidence demonstrates that clauses reflecting Crown leverage cluster systematically and decline over time as incorporation becomes more accessible. The findings reframe corporate purpose not merely as a normative contest among stakeholders but as the product of institutional bargaining at the point of corporate formation, offering a historical lens for contemporary purpose debates.
Subjects: 
corporate purpose
UK royal charters
text as data
shareholder primacy
historical perspective
JEL: 
K00
K2
K22
N80
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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