Financial cycles have sizeable economic effects, as witnessed during the 2008 financial crisis. However, despite the topic’s research importance, there is limited literature on how financial cycles and financial crises affect individual family firms. To the best of our knowledge, our study is among the first to measure the impact of financial cycles and crises on family firms. To study the impact of financial cycles on family firms, we use the Amadeus database on European companies. We identify family firms following the Global Family Business Index methodology 2019 (EY and the Center for Family Business of the University of St. Gallen). To measure the impact of financial cycles, we use the credit-to-GDP gap indicator from the Bank for International Settlements. Using the credit-to-GDP gap as a proxy for financial cycles, we use panel structural vector autoregression (Abrigo and Love 2016), Wald tests of Granger causality (Granger 1969), and impulse response functions (Lütkepohl 2010; Lütkepohl et al. 2015). We prove that family firms are less vulnerable than non-family firms to financial cycles during both financial booms and busts. Family firms perform better when financial cycle shocks have a less pronounced impact on firms’ performance. Non-family firms are highly vulnerable to financial cycles, performing worse during both booms and busts. The adoption of family firm management and governance policies should improve non-family firms’ performance and help the economy recover rapidly in times of crisis (exogenous shocks). Our study is the first to explore the impact of financial cycles on the micro level with a focus on family firms. The results could help managers and practitioners better form their business policy by looking at family firms’ experiences. Targeting economic policy more towards family firms in good and bad times will allow policymakers to prepare for future economic crises.

金融周期具有巨大的经济影响，正如2008年金融危机期间所见证的那样。但是，尽管该主题具有重要的研究意义，但有关金融周期和金融危机如何影响单个家族企业的文献很少。据我们所知，我们的研究是衡量金融周期和危机对家族企业影响的第一批研究之一。为了研究财务周期对家族企业的影响，我们使用了欧洲公司的Amadeus数据库。我们根据2019年全球家族企业指数方法（安永和圣加仑大学家族企业中心）确定家族企业。为了衡量金融周期的影响，我们使用了国际清算银行的信贷占GDP缺口指标。使用信贷与GDP的差距作为财务周期的替代指标，我们使用面板结构向量自回归（Abrigo和Love 2016），格兰杰因果关系的Wald检验（Granger 1969）和冲激响应函数（Lütkepohl2010;Lütkepohl等人2015）。我们证明，在金融繁荣和萧条期间，家族企业比非家族企业更不容易受到金融周期的影响。当金融周期冲击对公司业绩的影响不那么明显时，家族企业的业绩会更好。非家族企业极易受到金融周期的影响，在繁荣与萧条期间表现都较差。家族企业的管理和治理政策的采用将改善非家族企业的业绩，并在危机（外来冲击）时期帮助经济快速复苏。我们的研究是第一个探讨财务周期对微观水平的影响（重点是家族企业）的研究。研究结果可以帮助管理人员和从业人员通过查看家族企业的经验来更好地制定其业务策略。将经济政策更多地放在好时和坏时的家族企业上，将使决策者为未来的经济危机做准备。