Legal Form, Growth and Exit of West German Firms - Empirical Results for Manufacturing, Construction, Trade and Service Industries

In this paper we discuss determinants of firm survival and growth in Germany within its pre-1989 boundaries. We argue that the legal form adopted by a firm is an important indicator of the riskiness of projects undertaken, and that firms under limited liability should be characterized by higher than average insolvency and employment growth rates. We test these predictions by considering the survival chances and employment growth rates of various types of enterprises in a sample of approximately 11,000 West German firms from all major sectors of the German economy. We distinguish between voluntary liquidation without losses to creditors, and bankruptcy as forced liquidation. We demonstrate that firms under limited liability are characterized by higher growth and higher insolvency rates than comparable firms under full liability. Surprisingly, the likelihood of insolvencies is a non-monotonic function of firm size while the likelihood of voluntary liquidation decreases monotonically. Firms whose owners are approaching retirement age are characterized by relatively high hazards of voluntary liquidation, while the propensity to insolvency is not affected by the owner’s age. The basic empirical results hold in pooled samples as well as in estimates at the level of the one-digit industries of manufacturing, construction, trade, and services.