Corporate Ownership and Antitrust Violations
44 Pages Posted: 2 Oct 2019 Last revised: 4 Aug 2022
There are 2 versions of this paper
Corporate Ownership and Antitrust Violations
Family Ownership and Antitrust Violations
Date Written: September 21, 2019
Abstract
We study the relationship between corporate ownership and anticompetitive actions. Using data from Italy, we find that family firms are less likely than other firms to be involved in antitrust indictments. This result holds controlling for several factors which are different across family and nonfamily firms and may, in turn, correlate with anticompetitive behavior. Family control reduces the likelihood of antitrust indictments especially among larger companies, which are generally more likely to be prosecuted. However, conditional on being prosecuted, family firms face the same likelihood of monetary sanctions than nonfamily firms. Collectively, our results provide new insights on the role of corporate ownership for firms’ anticompetitive behavior.
Keywords: antitrust violation; corporate ownership; investment; financing
JEL Classification: D22; K21; G34; G38
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation