The cousin marriage tradition and performance of businesses during the economic crises in Nigeria

• Strong kinship structures provide social insurance to businesses in developing economies. • During crises, businesses in areas with cousin marriage tradition experience weaker negative effects on their profitability. • We utilise the data from the 2018–2019 Nigeria Living Standard Survey and find support for our hypotheses. Strong kinship structures correspond to important informal institutions that provide some social insurance to businesses in developing economies. More specifically, we posit that, during an economic crisis, businesses located in areas characterised by an in-group supporting marriage tradition (cousin marriage) will experience weaker negative effects on their profitability. We speculate that the cousin marriage tradition is associated with dense structures of kinship-based contacts between individuals, which creates the basis for effective social sanctions that support the cooperation needed during crises. Such structures may enhance the resilience of the local social systems; and local businesses may draw on local, socially available resources, which will attenuate the impact of crises on their financial performance. We utilise the data from the 2018–2019 Nigeria Living Standard Survey and find support for our hypotheses.