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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

4. Public Debt in an Unequal World

Author:
Sandy Brian Hager
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), University of London
Abstract:
Public debt levels have risen across the advanced capitalist world over the past four decades. Who exactly is purchasing these ever-growing piles of public debt? How do rising levels of public indebtedness relate to growing wealth and inequality? This paper presents some of my own findings, which indicate a rapid concentration in ownership of the US public debt since the early 1980s. Focusing on the Eurozone, the paper then goes on to discuss the difficulties in extending this type of research to other countries. The absence of reliable data on ownership of the public debt reinforces the need for a global registry that tracks the distribution of financial wealth.
Topic:
Debt, Capitalism, Inequality, Austerity, Public Debt, and Ownership
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. Restructuring in the Czech Republic- Beyond Ownership & Bankruptcy

Author:
Gerald A. McDermott and Aydin Hayri
Publication Date:
01-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Restructuring of large industrial holdings in the Czech Republic (S-farms) depends on probes into new markets. The development and financing of probes generates internal holdups and stalemates among the government, banks, and S firms. The government tries to preserve the value of just-privatized S-firms while avoiding subsidies; banks, facing their delinquency, cannot force bankruptcy since keeping them as clients is as important as maintaining capital ade quacy. A compromise arises, 1MBR (intricate monitoring based restructuring), where the outside parties condition their involvement on a peculiar reorganization of the farm. We provide the empirical and theoretical underpinnings of IMBR, the emergence of which is neither deliberate nor accidental. (Keywords; Restructuring, privatization, incom plete contracts, monitoring) ·We use aliases for the names of their companies and their managers to protect their privacy. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Ford Foundation Conference on CR transition at CERGE-EI. Prague CR. May 1994. '!The research was conducted at CERGE-EI. Prague CR. where Hayri was a visiting professor and McDermott is a visiting re searcher. McDermott's dissertation research was supported by generous grants from the US-CR Fulbright Commission and the Center for European Studies. Harvard University. The authors would like to thank CERGE-EI for its gracious administra tive support and hospitality and the following people for insightful comments and help: Suzanne Berger. Ales Capek. Zhi­yuan Cui. Jeremy Edwards. John Griffin, Miroslav Hrncir. Mike Jetton. Tony Levitas, Richard Locke. Ivana MazaIkova, Gerard Roland. Charles Sabel, David Stark. Frantisek Turnovec, and participants in a seminar at the University of Warwick.
Topic:
Privatization, Industry, Farming, Ownership, Debt Restructuring, and Bankruptcy
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe and Czech Republic

6. Governing Enterprises in Transition Economies: The Problem of Mixed Ownership in the Czech Republic

Author:
Raj M. Desai
Publication Date:
01-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper examines how formerly state-owned enterprises are governed in a post-Communist economy. Privatization was intended to clarify ownership rights by making private property the basis for productive relations. Inreality, gov ernments still own substantial percentages of share capital in "privatized" enterprises. and the question of who controls the company often remains unclear. Two dimensions of emerging corporate-governance structures are examined for enterprises under joint public-private ownership: contract enforcement and the influence of the state-as shareholder. The main argument is that these structures are determined according to government-investor negotiations over how to relinquish control of firms and privatize their cash flows, and proceeds in two steps. First, state authori ties and prospective investors commit to the terms of privatization. Second, instruments of contract enforcement and state influence emerge from these commitments through bargaining. Evidence from two industry cases in the Czech Republic-steel and petrochemicals-shows that contract-enforcement is delegated to a third party when a govern ment cannot credibly commit to all the privatization terms desired ex ante by investors who prefer long-term, Jarge bloc equities; additionally, the state's fiduciary influence will be limited if ministries and property agencies are politically unified. Delegating contractual responsibility while limiting state discretion will make progress in estab lishing property rights. • An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chi cago. September 1995 .. The author is grateful for comments from Peter Hall. Joel Hellman. Grzegorz Ekiert, and the par ticipants of the Seminar on Post-Communist Institutions (Russian Research Center). and the Workshop on East European Politics (Center for European Studies). Harvard University.
Topic:
Governance, Industry, Ownership, Post-Communism, and Democratic Transitions
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Czech Republic