Impact of succession on performance: The case of the Italian family farms

In this paper we analyse whether the event of succession changes the performance of farms, for the case of Italian family farms during the period 2008-2014. We using data from the Italian Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) and several performance indicators. Analyses based on t-tests of equality of means and propensity score matching reveal that succession has a negative effect on performance indicators related to capital, revealing that the capital value has increased after succession. In addition, for farms with succession in the first years of the period considered, performance per hectare after succession is lower for those farms than for farms in which no succession occurred. But this negative effect of succession on performance per hectare is not systematically confirmed when performance is related per labour unit.