We find that the difference between the mean return on assets of all Norwegian family firms and nonfamily firms is 1.4 percentage points and positive every year over twenty years. This family firm premium increases when the family as a whole owns a higher equity stake, has fewer owning members,...

We examine how negative liquidity shocks to households propagate to firms. We show that higher taxes on the personal home of private firms' controlling shareholders are associated with higher dividend and salary payments from firms to shareholders and with lower cash holdings, investments,...

We find that potential conflicts between majority and minority shareholders strongly influence how dividends respond to taxes. When the controlling shareholder has a smaller stake, the incentives to extract private benefits are stronger – a shareholder conflict that can be mitigated by...

This chapter reports main findings from a comprehensive study of how Norwegian family firms are governed and how they behave and perform as economic entities. Analyzing all firms from 2000 to 2015, we show that the family firm represents the most widespread way of organizing economic activity,...