Doctoral thesis of Philosophy: Investor protection and agency problems in family firms: Evidence from China

The increasingly important role played by family firms in China’s fledging capital market calls for a better understanding of how it works and is governed. This study aims to explore how corporate governance issues in family firms are tackled from the perspective of investor protection. The thesis addresses the question by first presenting theoretical models showing the relations among investor protection, family governance, and agency costs in family firms. It then formulates empirical models to test the predictions of the theoretical models by using a unique and detailed family-firm data set in China’s stock markets, one of the largest and fastest growing economies in the world.