Companies in Victorian Britain operated in a laissez-faire legal environment from the perspective of outside investors, implying that such investors were not protected by the legal system.This article seeks to identify the alternative mechanisms that outside shareholders used to protect themselves by examining the dividend policy and governance of over 800 publicly traded companies at the beginning of the 1880s. We assess the importance of these mechanisms by estimating their impact on Tobin's Q. Our evidence suggests that dividends and well-structured and incentivized boards of directors may have played a role in protecting the interests of outside investors.T he British capital market underwent a great transformation in the nineteenth century in terms of the number and value of equity securities. 2 The liberalization of incorporation law and the establishment of regional stock exchanges removed supply constraints, while the increasing wealth and financial sophistication of the middle classes simultaneously increased the demand for publicly traded equity.The rapid growth in the number of companies issuing such equity raises the question as to how outside investors were assured that they would receive a return on their investment as well as their initial capital back. 3 Recent academic studies have suggested that the legal system plays an important role in determining the level of protection enjoyed by outside shareholders. 4 However, in the Victorian era, British company law and common-law principles were laissez-faire in this regard. 5

A detailed account is given of a number of neurons in the locust central nervous system that react with antibody raised to serotonin-albumin complex. The antibody was applied to a series of frozen sections of locust ganglia and visualized by using the peroxidase immunohistochemical procedure. The neurons described include certain afferents and their related neuropiles, a small number of efferents and several systems of interneurons, some of which are segmentally repeated, some run from the brain through the whole nerve cord, while others are confined to the brain. It has been possible to identify many of the neurons from previous descriptions obtained from cobalt, Golgi, and osmium ethyl gallate methods.

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The mechanism of change in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels by diets differing in fat saturation have been studied. Turnover of 125I-LDL was measured in eight subjects with type II hyperlipoproteinemia and in seven normal control subjects during two dietary periods containing 40% of calories as either safflower oil (polyunsaturated fat, PSF) or as lard (saturated fat, SF). Higher levels of LDL apoprotein and LDL-cholesterol were observed in both groups on saturated fat. Subjects with elevated LDL levels (type II) showed a more marked effect of polyunsaturated fat with 25% lower LDL production rate as compared to a reduction of only 10% for the control group. On the PSF diet, the production rate in type II (12.7 mg.kg-1.day-1) was not statistically different from normal subjects (10.5 mg.kg-1.day-1). On this diet, the higher levels of LDL cholesterol in the type II subjects (as compared to controls) were due to a lower fractional clearance rate, mean of 0.27/day compared to a mean of 0.39/day for the normal subjects. Although individuals with type II hyperlipoproteinemia may have a primary clearance defect, the major reduction in plasma cholesterol concentrations achieved with a diet high in polyunsaturated fat can be attributed to a significantly lower LDL production.

This paper discusses the corporate governance of banking institutions in developing economies. This is an important issue given the essential role that banks play in the financial systems of developing economies and the widespread banking reforms that these economies have implemented. Based on a theoretical discussion of the corporate governance of banks, we suggest that banking reforms can only be fully implemented once a prudential regulatory system is in place. An integral part of banking reforms in developing economies is the privatisation of banks. We suggest that corporate governance reforms may be a prerequisite for the successful divestiture of government ownership. Furthermore, we also suggest that the increased competition resulting from the entrance of foreign banks may improve the corporate governance of developing-economy banks. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004.