The financial meltdown has certainly undermined two of the big ideas inspired by Messrs Jensen and Meckling: that senior managers' pay should be closely linked to their firm's share price, and that private equity, backed by mountains of debt, would do a better job of getting managers to maximise value than the public equity markets.

ECONOMIST: Shareholders v stakeholders

Surrounded by the Pioneer Mountains, Divide was nestled in a flat-backed valley sprinkled with sagebrush and half-burnt two-by-fours, a reminder of when people actually used to live here.

NPR: Excerpt: 'The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet'