IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/jeurec/v5y2007i4p709-751.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Performance and Behavior of Family Firms: Evidence from the French Stock Market

Author

Listed:
  • David Sraer
  • David Thesmar

Abstract

This paper empirically documents the performance and behavior of family firms listed on the French stock exchange between 1994 and 2000. On the French stock market, approximately one third of the firms are widely held, whereas the remaining two thirds are family firms. We find that, in the cross-section, family firms largely outperform widely held corporations. This result holds for founder-controlled firms, professionally managed family firms, but more surprisingly also for firms run by descendants of the founder. We offer explanations for the good performance of family firms. First, we present evidence of a more efficient use of labor in heir-managed firms. These firms pay lower wages, even allowing for skill and age structure. We also find that descendants smooth out industry shocks and manage to honor implicit labor contracts. Second, we present evidence consistent with outside CEOs in family firms making a more parsimonious use of capital. They employ more unskilled, cheap labor, use less capital, pay lower interest rates on debt and initiate more profitable acquisitions. (JEL: G32, L25, J31) (c) 2007 by the European Economic Association.

Suggested Citation

  • David Sraer & David Thesmar, 2007. "Performance and Behavior of Family Firms: Evidence from the French Stock Market," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(4), pages 709-751, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:tpr:jeurec:v:5:y:2007:i:4:p:709-751
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1542-4774/issues
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    2. Ronald C. Anderson & David M. Reeb, 2003. "Founding‐Family Ownership and Firm Performance: Evidence from the S&P 500," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1301-1328, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chan-Jane Lin & Tawei Wang & Chao-Jung Pan, 2016. "Financial reporting quality and investment decisions for family firms," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 499-532, June.
    2. Lee, Soo-Hoon & Phan, Phillip H. & Ding, Hung-bin, 2016. "A theory of family employee involvement during resource paucity," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 160-166.
    3. Young Mok Choi & Kunsu Park, 2019. "Foreign Ownership, Agency Costs, and Long-Term Firm Growth: Evidence from Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-17, March.
    4. Stavros E. Arvanitis & Theodoros V. Stamatopoulos & Dimitris Terzakis, 2018. "Is There a Non-linear Relationship of Market Value with Cash and Ownership?," SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, University of Piraeus, vol. 68(1), pages 3-25, January-M.
    5. Matthias Kiefer & Edward Jones & Andrew Adams, 2016. "Principals, Agents and Incomplete Contracts: Are Surrender of Control and Renegotiation the Solution?," CFI Discussion Papers 1603, Centre for Finance and Investment, Heriot Watt University.
    6. James, Hui & Benson, Bradley W. & Wu, Chen (Ken), 2017. "Does CEO ownership affect payout policy? Evidence from using CEO scaled wealth-performance sensitivity," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 328-345.
    7. Kim, Euysung, 2006. "The impact of family ownership and capital structures on productivity performance of Korean manufacturing firms: Corporate governance and the "chaebol problem"," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 209-233, June.
    8. ElBannan, Mona A., 2017. "Stock market liquidity, family ownership, and capital structure choices in an emerging country," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 201-231.
    9. Waelchli, Urs & Zeller, Jonas, 2013. "Old captains at the helm: Chairman age and firm performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1612-1628.
    10. Helwege, Jean & Packer, Frank, 2009. "Private matters," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 362-383, July.
    11. Ginesti, Gianluca & Ossorio, Mario & Dawson, Alexandra, 2023. "Family businesses and debt maturity structure: Focusing on family involvement in governance to explain heterogeneity," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 14(2).
    12. Hoje Jo & Maretno Harjoto, 2011. "Corporate Governance and Firm Value: The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 103(3), pages 351-383, October.
    13. Alex Chan & Hoi Cheung, 2012. "Cultural Dimensions, Ethical Sensitivity, and Corporate Governance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 110(1), pages 45-59, September.
    14. Lozano, M. Belén & Yaman, Serhat, 2020. "The determinants of cash flow sensitivity of cash: The family ownership effect," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    15. Jun-Koo Kang & Jungmin Kim, 2020. "Do Family Firms Invest More than Nonfamily Firms in Employee-Friendly Policies?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(3), pages 1300-1324, March.
    16. Ni‐Yun Chen & Chi‐Chun Liu, 2021. "Share repurchases and market signaling: Evidence from earnings management," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 21(4), pages 1203-1224, December.
    17. De Cesari, Amedeo & Gonenc, Halit & Ozkan, Neslihan, 2016. "The effects of corporate acquisitions on CEO compensation and CEO turnover of family firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 294-317.
    18. Patrice Charlier & Céline Duboys, 2011. "Gouvernance familiale et politique de distribution aux actionnaires," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, revues.org, vol. 14(1), pages 5-31., March.
    19. Sumon Kumar Bhaumik & Andros Gregoriou, 2010. "‘Family’ Ownership, Tunnelling And Earnings Management: A Review Of The Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 705-730, September.
    20. Imran Yousaf & Shoaib Ali & Arshad Hassan, 2019. "Effect of family control on corporate dividend policy of firms in Pakistan," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 5(1), pages 1-13, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • L21 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Business Objectives of the Firm

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:jeurec:v:5:y:2007:i:4:p:709-751. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.