Daddy, don't leave the company to Junior

You know how we scoff and tutt over the Paris Hiltons of the world, lolling through a life of luxury without lifting a finger thanks to Daddy's dough. Turns out that's a much healthier business model than the one in which a consciencious child (usually the oldest son) would take over the family business.

London School of Economics/McKinsey study says the best way to ruin a UK family business is to give it to an eldest son, by Finfacts Team: Research published today by the Centre for Economics Performance at the London School of Economics and McKinsey the consultancy, suggests that the best way to ruin a UK family business is to give it to an eldest son. The research into the gap between the UK's productivity performance and that in the US, France and Germany found ... that half of the difference between British companies and their overseas competitors ... could be explained by the prevalence in Britain of second or later generation family-run companies. If those were removed from the analysis, British performance did not look nearly so bad.

Nick Bloom, one of the authors, urges the UK Government to scrap the 100 per cent inheritance tax relief given to large family businesses. Bloom says that if tax relief were to be capped at £1m, it would spur productivity growth, save taxpayers £250m a year and avoid entrenching poor management in Britain's boardrooms. "Can you imagine if the current England football team was picked from the sons of the team in 1966? We wouldn't win anything."...

Well, when you think about it, it's not surprising exactly...imagine if Paris Hilton was in charge of running the hotels.

Party on, Paris. And thanks for taking one for the team.