How should we draw implications from the results of family firms’ slow productivity
growth and high survival probability? If productivity growth is the highest policy priority,
family firms may seem undesirable. As the share of family firms is larger in
non-manufacturing industries, it is related to the issue of service-sector productivity in Japan.
However, this is difficult to judge from a normative viewpoint, because family firms’
managerial objectives are different from those of non-family firms and their performance is in
line with the objectives. Morck et al. (1988), who find negative effects of higher board
ownership and founding family presence on firm value (Tobin’s q) in the U.S., argue that the
results are “not evidence of inefficiency, since they might just reflect the optimal tradeoff
between profits and private benefits.” Hence, from a policy perspective, it is important to
expand options for family firms to change the structure by removing obstacles to going public
or transfer of ownership to third parties.