ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the relationship of Fiat and the Agnelli family. It shows that the cycle "Giovanni Agnelli-Romiti-John Elkan" tends to repeat the earlier cycle "Giovanni Agnelli-Valletta-John Elkan". The chapter explains at a more theoretical level why different models of capitalism may co-exist and how the transition from one form of capitalism to the other tends to occur after major institutional shocks in countries where the preceding organizational forms were relatively weaker. It considers the changes that characterized Italian corporate governance between the two world wars when a "bank-based system of corporate governance" was replaced by a sort of co-habitation between "family capitalism" and State-owned enterprises. The chapter also considers the nineties when privatization was intended to be linked to both the dismantling of State ownership and the birth of a new model of corporate governance. It concludes by observing that the purity of the model may contrast with its institutional stability that requires the contribution of specific complementary institutions.
