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1. A Bitter Adjustment for German Family Capitalism: Succession and a Changing Ownership Transfer Regime

Author:
Isabell Stamm and Allan Sandham
Publication Date:
11-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies (MaxPo)
Abstract:
Germany is known for its family-owned businesses that transfer ownership across generations. However, business owners in Germany increasingly envision selling their business beyond the family, which fundamentally changes the institutionalized way private ownership of businesses is transferred. In this paper, we analyze and explain this fundamental change in German family capitalism since the 1990s. Drawing on a sociology of ownership, we view family succession as a transfer regime and show how this regime has been problematized and gradually reframed. Based on analysis of a rich corpus of documents, archival materials, and twenty-seven expert interviews, we show how a new transfer regime – the exit regime – emerges, which coordinates ownership transfer among founders through matchmaking. Our study contributes to research on family capitalism and succession by demonstrating how family capital moves toward the financial sector without becoming financial capital as it loses the family and gains the founder as personalized points of reference.
Topic:
Regime Change, Capitalism, Family, Succession, and Ownership
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

2. A Bitter Adjustment for German Family Capitalism: Succession and a Changing Ownership Transfer Regime

Author:
Isabell Stamm and Allan Sandham
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
Germany is known for its family-owned businesses that transfer ownership across generations. However, business owners in Germany increasingly envision selling their business beyond the family, which fundamentally changes the institutionalized way private ownership of businesses is transferred. In this paper, we analyze and explain this fundamental change in German family capitalism since the 1990s. Drawing on a sociology of ownership, we view family succession as a transfer regime and show how this regime has been problematized and gradually reframed. Based on analysis of a rich corpus of documents, archival materials, and twenty-seven expert interviews, we show how a new transfer regime – the exit regime – emerges, which coordinates ownership transfer among founders through matchmaking. Our study contributes to research on family capitalism and succession by demonstrating how family capital moves toward the financial sector without becoming financial capital as it loses the family and gains the founder as personalized points of reference.
Topic:
Regime Change, Capitalism, Family, Succession, and Ownership
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

3. Who Are These Bond Vigilantes Anyway? The Political Economy of Sovereign Debt Ownership in the Eurozone

Author:
Tobias Arbogast
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies (MaxPo)
Abstract:
This paper examines the ownership structure of eurozone public debt and the distributional consequences thereof. Through both a comparative perspective and an explorative case study of Italy, this paper asks two research questions. Firstly, it asks who holds government debt in Spain, France, Germany, and Italy. I focus in on Italy to provide, to the author’s knowledge, the first highly disaggregated view of the holding structure of public debt. Secondly, for Italy I study distributional effects by examining who benefits from the interest received on government debt. This is accomplished through an investigation of the various stakeholders associated with public debt. Results indicate that most of the public debt is held by private and public financial institutions but rarely directly by households. Both direct and indirect beneficiaries of the interest received on government bonds in Italy turn out to be largely wealthy households, reflecting the unequal ownership of wealth more generally. However, prominent public financial institutions are also significant beneficiaries, which likely ameliorates a possible regressive distributional effect of the public debt holding structure. The paper discusses the results with an eye on inequality and contributes to further study of the political economy of public debt.
Topic:
European Union, Inequality, Public Debt, Bonds, Public Finance, and Ownership
Political Geography:
Europe