We study how generalized trust shapes the ability of firms with different ownership forms to obtain trade financing and perform during a financial crisis. Exploiting geographic variations in trust across Italian regions and the occurrence of the 2008-09 financial crisis in a difference-indifferences setting, we show that generalized trust makes family firms less able to obtain trade financing during the crisis. This finding maps into performance results: trust alleviates the negative effect of a crisis for non-family firms, while it aggravates the negative effect for family firms. This latter result depends crucially on a firm’s corporate governance: trust does not harm family firms whose board is open to non-family directors. Collectively, our findings illustrate how culture interacts with corporate attributes in shaping a firm’s prospects.

中文翻译：

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走出金融危机：信托与企业所有权的共同作用

我们研究广义信任如何塑造具有不同所有权形式的公司在金融危机期间获得贸易融资和执行的能力。利用意大利各地区信任的地理差异以及 2008-09 年金融危机在差异无差异环境中的发生，我们表明普遍信任使家族企业在危机期间获得贸易融资的能力降低。这一发现反映了绩效结果：信任减轻了危机对非家族企业的负面影响，同时加剧了对家族企业的负面影响。后一种结果在很大程度上取决于公司的公司治理：信任不会损害董事会对非家族董事开放的家族企业。总的来说，我们的发现说明了文化如何与企业属性相互作用以塑造公司的前景。