While in the US stock-based incentives are commonly used since the 50s of the last century, in Germany they were invented only some ten years ago. Even in 1996 firms faced considerable regulatory difficulties when willing to grant such incentives. In the meantime the legal environment has...

This paper investigates the strategy of private equity investors to take public companiesprivate in blockholder-based economies. Drawing on a unique dataset, we providestrong evidence that private equity investors buy companies in order to mitigatepotential agency problems and hence to improve...

Etablierte Demokratien westlichen Typs, wie etwa die DemokratieformDeutschlands, zeichnen sich durch handlungsrechtliche Systemstrukturen aus, diegraduell unterschiedlich große Verteilungsspielräume für politischeEntscheidungsträger enthalten. Dieser Sachverhalt steht in engemZusammenhang...

In this study we analyze the evolution of ownership, control, and performance in German founding-family-owned firms over the last century. We begin by identifying German family-owned stock companies (Aktiengesellschaften) founded before World War I and still in existence in 2003 with sales...

Little is known about the relationship between family firms and their employees. This paper aims to close this gap. We distinguish between family management and family ownership as two dimensions of family firms and analyze their respective influence on downsizing. Our findings show that family...

Persistent differences in the level of business ownership across economically developed nations have attracted the attentiion of scientific as well as political debate. Cultural rather than economic influences are assumed to play a decisive role. This paper deals with the influence of cutlural...

This paper presents a harmonized data set over the period 1972-2002, containing two-yearly data on the number of non-agricultural business owners and the size of the labour force for 23 OECD countries, as well as the quotient of these two variables which is called the business ownership rate of...

Administrative burdens are known to be a major business constraint for incumbent SMEs in modern economies. Far less is known about the influence of these burdens on the startup of new firms. The current paper examines to what extent perceived administrative complexity related to starting a new...