Family firm local involvement and the Local Home Bias phenomenon
研究了家族企业因与本地社区的共生关系而增强的本地偏好现象，发现该偏好主要存在于创始人任CEO的家族企业中，并降低了融资成本。
Research has documented that most of retail and institutional investors exhibit a strong preference for stocks issued by nearby listed firms (i.e. Local Home Bias). This phenomenon shapes corporate market value and the cost of funding. In this paper, we investigate whether the Local Home Bias is enhanced in family firms as a consequence of their symbiotic connection with the local community. Using a dataset of 2,951 Italian firm-year observations (1,481 are family firms) over the period 1999–2011, we find that Local Home Bias is not a widespread phenomenon and mainly occurs in founding family firms where the founder serves as CEO. The Local Home Bias is absent in non-family firms or in family firms where the owner has acquired control through a market transaction. Overall, results suggest that locally committed family firms trigger investor preference for local stocks and, in doing so, exploit the dedicated local clientele which shrinks the cost of funding. Ultimately, we argue the social contributions of family firms to the local community could even have opportunistic traits and a non-trivial economic effect.