The economics of the family firm

Abstract The paper investigates how far the study of family firms constitutes a subject in its own right. It is argued that family ownership per se does not require the development of a special theory of family firms. It is suggested that the uniqueness of the family firm resides in the strength of the dynastic motive, which may strengthen trust between family members, but discourages the recruitment of non-family members and so inhibits the growth of the firm. The strength of the dynastic motive varies across family firms. The paper summarises two recent approaches to the economic theory of family firms which attempt to formalise these insights, and demonstrates the complementarities between them.