Importance and Impact of Business Groups in Baden-Württemberg

The project explores and describes the significance of business groups in Germany and particularly in the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg. For this purpose, it makes use of existing data from the German Business Register (Unternehmensregister) and combines this information with ownership data from Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publishing (Markus-Database). This allows for differentiated sectoral and regional accounts of the economic relevance of business groups, but it also permits drawing a detailed picture of the structure of regional and sectoral linkages between group members. In the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg, about 6% of the firms are group members -– however, they employ nearly 50% of all jobholders and they account for two thirds of total turnover. Nevertheless, Baden-Württemberg is less influenced by firms outside the state and firms and employees are more independent than in most other German regions.