This paper examines how family and non-family ownership affects the performance of Swiss listed firms from 2003 to 2010. We distinguish between these two types of controlling shareholders since they have different objectives. We hypothesise that only family shareholders have a real incentive to...

This article analyses founding family influence on pay-out policies for Swiss listed firms over the period 2003-2010. We hypothesise that family firms have different incentives and characteristics that affect pay-out decisions and propose three possible explanations: agency theory, reputation...

Recent research has documented that family-controlled firms are very common around the world. This paper provides new evidence on the accounting and market performance of this type of companies. The empirical investigation is conducted on a market in which family firms are well-established and...

We study the effect of dividend taxes on the payout and investment policies of publicly listed firms. To do so, we exploit a unique setting in Switzerland where, following the corporate tax reform of 2011, some but not all firms were suddenly able to pay tax-exempt dividends to their...