We test the hypotheses that, in presence of financial constraints, a low leverage policy directed at maintaining financial flexibility can affect company investment. Low leverage is defined according to deviations from target which are estimated via GMS-SYS. Our analysis reveals that, following...

I show that ownership by blockholding and board composition is an important determinant ofcorporate debt maturity structure. Using GMM methodology to control for the potential endogeneityof all regressors, I find a statistically and economically significant negative relation between...

This paper studies conservative debt policies, focusing on firms with no debt (zeroleverage)or with extremely low debt. Examining an unbalanced panel of U.K. firms,we show that debt conservatism is a common, persistent yet puzzling empiricalregularity: nearly 10% of U.K. firms have zero leverage...

The Handbook of Research on Family Business provides a comprehensive first port of call for those wishing to survey progress in the theory and practice of family business research. In response to the extensive growth of family business as a topic of academic inquiry, the principal objective of...

During the previous decade, the multi-disciplinary field of family business has advanced significantly in terms of advances in theory, development of sophisticated empirical instruments, systematic measurement of family business activity, use of alternative research methodologies and deployment...