Sensitivity to shocks and implicit employment protection in family firms

Carl Magnus Bjuggren

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2015, vol. 119, issue C, 18-31

Abstract: In this study I find that employment in family firms is less sensitive to performance and product market fluctuations. I show this by investigating aggregate fluctuations at the industry level as well as idiosyncratic firm level shocks. By differentiating between temporary and permanent shocks at the firm level, I find that family firms appear to be less anxious to translate temporary shocks into changes in employment. This supports the idea that family firms are able to offer their employees implicit employment protection. Family firms are believed to have longer time horizons, and are as owners more easily identified with their company and its actions. These are features that could make family firms more cautious in terms of adjusting their employment. Unlike previous contributions, I am able to identify all family firms, both private and public, by using full population data from tax registers.

Keywords: Family firms; Employment protection; Shocks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 G32 J21 J23 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268115002024
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Sensitivity to Shocks and Implicit Employment Protection in Family Firms (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:119:y:2015:i:c:p:18-31

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2015.07.011

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().