We study the impact of succession tournaments on risk-taking in family firms. More sons (less daughters) in controlling families are associated with higher income volatility and lower performance – especially, in opaque private firms with pyramidal ownership structure. Contestants exhibit...

This is the online appendix for 'Family Feud: Succession Tournaments and Risk-taking in Family Firms' available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2703571.We identify succession as a novel determinant of risk-taking in family firms. We find significantly higher risk-taking (M&A and cash flow...

We analyze the impact of the introduction of credit default swaps (CDS) on real decision making within the firm and the influence of firms' local economic and legal environments on that impact. We extend the model of Bolton and Oehmke (2011) to take into account uncertainty about whether the...