) family firms are considered to be the backbone of the economy. We find that family firms have significantly lower leverage … ratios than non-family firms, independent of the definition of leverage applied. Among the three dimensions of a family firm …, management board involvement by the founding family has a consistently negative influence on leverage across all our models. In …

and how this interaction is affected by ownership structure. We show that firms in our sample increase their leverage … that the leverage of these firms has a positive and significant effect on regulated prices, but not vice versa, and it also … privately-controlled firms use leverage strategically to shield themselves against regulatory opportunism. …