Risk and Business-Owning Families

This paper analyses investment behaviour of family business owners in order to disentangle risk taking patterns in the Spanish context. In particular, this study tries to show whether family business owners are more risk tolerant than no owners, and which features are conditioning risk taking perceptions and behaviour. For that, we use data from the 2002 and 2005 Spanish Survey of Household Finance (EFF). With these data it is possible to conduct longitudinal and cross-sectional Studies to obtain more robust conclusions. Although there are similar Studies for the US economy (Xiao et al, 2000 among others), this is the first study for Continental European family firms, as far as the authors are concerned and the first to present panel data analysis. Results will help to increase the understanding of risk tolerance and may help to design political recommendations with respect to this important part of the economy.