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...

This article presents a model where firms may endogenously externalize part of their production process. We start from the premise that adaptation to uncertainty cannot be contracted upon in the worker/employer relationship. Vertical separation then balances flexibility gains against hold-up...