This paper analyzes how founders and their families influence R&D intensity. Information on R&D comes from a large-scale, bi-annual survey among listed German firms. We find that R&D intensity is higher in firms that are actively managed by the family. The impact of family control (via voting...

This paper analyzes the question if and how founding families influence the capital structure decision of their firms. By using a unique, partially hand-collected panel dataset of 660 listed German companies (5,135 firm years) over the period 1995 to 2006, we come up with the following results:...

We analyse whether family firms differ from non-family firms in terms of business segment and geographical diversification or the application of currency hedging instruments. This analysis is based on a unique dataset of 339 publicly listed companies (1,561 firm years) in the German Prime...

Naturparke bilden die älteste Schutzgebietskategorie in Deutschland. Neben Aufgaben wie Naturschutz und Erholung wurde ihnen als relativ neue und zentrale Aufgabe die nachhaltige Regionalentwicklung, verankert im Bundesnaturschutzgesetz sowie den meisten Landesnaturschutzgesetzen, zugesprochen....

We propose a novel approach to measure the value that shareholders assign to financial flexibility. In contrast to existing proxies for financial constraints, our measure is market-based, forward-looking and not directly influenced by past financial decisions. We find that firms for which...

We examine whether cultural differences between countries help in explaining firms' hedging decisions. For this, we manually collect data on the hedging behavior of worldwide energy utilities. The analysis reveals a strong impact of a country's long-term orientation, which reduces the...