The Dual Class Premium: A Family Affair

Critics advocate eliminating dual class shares. We find that founding families control 89% of dual class firms, potentially confounding economic inferences regarding these structures. Using industry, market and Fama-French excess returns, we find a buy-and-hold strategy of dual class family firms, annually makes an additional 350 basis points over the benchmark. Institutional owners garner a disparate portion of these excess returns by holding...