Using Total Factor Productivity (TFP) as a measure of corporate performance, this study compares the performance of owner management to that of firms run by professional managers over the period 2004-2006. We consider the influence of owner management for the sample as a whole and for subgroups...

Using Total Factor Productivity (TFP) as a measure of corporate performance, we find that Italian family-run firms are less productive than firms run by outside managers and the result is robust to potential endogeneity of management regime. This difference tends to vanish when the age of the...