Riding out of a financial crisis: The joint effect of trust and corporate ownership

Mario Amore () and Mircea Epure

Journal of Comparative Economics, 2021, vol. 49, issue 1, 92-109

Abstract: We study how generalized trust shapes the ability of firms with different ownership forms to obtain trade financing and perform during a financial crisis. Exploiting geographic variations in trust across Italian regions and the occurrence of the 2008-09 financial crisis in a difference-in-differences setting, we show that generalized trust makes family firms less able to obtain trade financing during the crisis. This finding maps into performance results: trust alleviates the negative effect of a crisis for non-family firms, while it aggravates the negative effect for family firms. This latter result depends crucially on a firm's corporate governance: trust does not harm family firms whose board is open to non-family directors. Collectively, our findings illustrate how culture interacts with corporate attributes in shaping a firm's prospects.

Keywords: Trust; Trade financing; Family firms; Financial crisis; Performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G32 G34 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: Riding Out of a Financial Crisis: The Joint Effect of Trust and Corporate Ownership (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:49:y:2021:i:1:p:92-109

DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2020.07.003

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