And in 1976 a brilliant article by two business academics, Michael Jensen of Harvard and William Meckling of the University of Rochester, offered a radical diagnosis.

ECONOMIST: Schumpeter

Professor Michael Jensen of Harvard Business School (along with Bill Meckling of Rochester) did some formidable research now almost 40 years ago on the agency-principal problem in modern corporate America.

FORBES: The Difference Between The Mindsets Of Founders And Professional Managers

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