摘要：We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from 732
medium sized manufacturing firms in the US, France, Germany and the UK. These
measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with firm-level
productivity, profitability, Tobin’s Q, sales growth and survival rates.
Management practices also display significant cross-country differences with US
firms on average better managed than European firms, and significant
within-country differences with a long tail of extremely badly managed firms. We
find that poor management practices are more prevalent when (a) product market
competition is weak and/or when (b) family-owned firms pass management control
down to the eldest sons (primo geniture). European firms report lower levels of
competition, while French and British firms also report substantially higher
levels of primo geniture due to the influence of Norman legal origin and
generous estate duty for family firms. We calculate that product market
competition and family firms account for about half of the long tail of badly
managed firms and up to two thirds of the American advantage over Europe in
management practices.
