This paper investigates how family ownership, control and management affect firm investment performance. We use the identity of the CEO and the COB to establish under what management the firm is: founder, descendent or external management. The analysis shows that founder management has no effect...

Countries in which billionaire heirs' wealth is large relative to G.D.P. grow more slowly, show signs of more political rent-seeking, and spend less on innovation than do other countries at similar levels of development. In contrast, countries in which self-made entrepreneur billionaire wealth...

Countries in which billionaire heirs' wealth is large relative to G.D.P. grow more slowly, show signs of more political rent-seeking, and spend less on innovation than do other countries at similar levels of development. In contrast, countries in which self-made entrepreneur billionaire wealth...

We analyze the impact of corporate governance institutions, ownership structures and external capital market constraints on company returns on investment by using a sample of more than 19,000 companies from 61 countries across the world. We show that (1) of these three sets of institutions, the...