National Governments as Shareholders in Europe Focusing on the Jurisdictions of Germany and Austria in the Light of Global Developments

Overall, state owned enterprises (SOEs) – this paper considers enterprises in which the government is at least a major blockholder as state owned – have played and still play an important role in several jurisdictions all over the world. But in the course of the last two or three decades these ownership structures have been decreasing through several privatization processes all over the world. Only recently governmental investments in the private sector have led to a moderate revival of state ownership. In this paper I will present different motivations behind governmental share-ownership. I will contrast the situation in Europe to the US and China and briefly deal with Brazil and Russia. Further, an empirical study will give insights about the impact of governmental ownership on corporate value in Germany and Austria.