 Ancestors and corporate performance: Evidence from the Italian Mass MigrationMingying Cheng, Erminia Florio and Stefano Manfredonia Journal of Financial Stability, 2025, vol. 76, issue C Abstract: We study the relationship between the behavior of a CEO’s ancestors and firm performance. To do so, we collect detailed information on emigrants from Italian municipalities during the Age of Mass Migration (1892–1924) from Ellis Island ships lists. We adopt an epidemiological approach complemented with an instrumental variables strategy and find that Italian firms managed by a CEO who belongs to a family with past emigration experience tend to perform better and to be more productive. In line with an inter-generational transmission of attitudes hypothesis, we show a positive relationship between the emigration experience of a CEO’s ancestors and alternative measures of corporate risk-taking. In addition, we find a positive relationship between having an ancestor who emigrated during the Age of Mass Migration and FDI to the United States. We also provide evidence that these CEOs have better managerial practices. Keywords: Emigration; Attitudes; Corporate performance; Mass Migration (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:finsta:v:76:y:2025:i:c:s1572308924001566 DOI: 10.1016/j.jfs.2024.101371 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Financial Stability is currently edited by I. Hasan, W. C. Hunter and G. G. Kaufman More articles in Journal of Financial Stability from Elsevier |
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