Abstract

Historically, it was common for companies to issue assessable stock. With assessable stock, a company’s board of directors could request additional payments beyond the initial stock price. Typically, shareholders forfeited their stock ownership if assessments remained unpaid; defaulted shares were sold at auction. This form of securitization became popular in extractive industries, such as gold and silver mining. In this article, I provide a description of its legal history and a detailed case study of large companies with mining claims on the Comstock lode between 1860 and 1877, considered an exemplar of successful mine development with assessable stock. I also examine several hypotheses used to explain the practice of issuing assessable stock, such as limiting agency and information costs.

摘要

从历史上看，公司发行应税股票是很常见的。对于应税股票，公司董事会可以要求在初始股票价格之外支付额外款项。通常情况下，如果评估仍未支付，股东将没收其股权；违约股票在拍卖会上出售。这种证券化形式在金矿和银矿等采掘业中变得流行。在这篇文章中，我提供了其法律历史的描述和 1860 年至 1877 年间对 Comstock 矿脉拥有采矿权的大公司的详细案例研究，被认为是具有可评估存量的成功矿山开发的典范。我还研究了几个用于解释发行应税股票的做法的假设，例如限制代理和信息成本。