Browsing by Person "Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle"

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Investors and investment behavior in Germany, 1869-1955
(2019) Neumayer, Andreas; Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle
The central purpose of this dissertation is to study investors characteristics, as well as investment decisions on the different German stock exchanges in the period 1869 to 1955. It offers three studies that reveal typical characteristics of investors and their investment behavior over time. Increasing our knowledge of investors and how they built expectations therefore crucially improves our understanding about the economic and political situation in Germany in the considered time period. The dataset is new and unique and includes information of more than 10,000 individual investors. The investors data are taken from archival resources containing lists of shareholders who attended a firms’ general assembly, shareholder books of different companies, portfolio choices over the lifetime of a single private banker and diary entries of individual investors. The first part of this dissertation presents a study of investors characteristics and the ownership structure of joint-stock firms for the period of 1869 to 1945. It is shown that after the hyperinflation of 1923, when shares became cheaper, the ownership share among lower social classes rose significantly. Moreover, with the rise of women rights after 1919, the number of shares owned by women also increased significantly. However, despite these shifts, the majority of shares remained in the hands of institutional investors and investors from the upper class. The second part analyzes investors’ expectations and investment decisions in regional stock exchanges in Germany from 1898 to 1934. The statistical analysis, which is based on shareholder lists attending general meetings first indicates that local investment was clearly important during this period. Then, challenging these findings and analyzing different sub-samples, suggests that investors’ home bias is potentially overestimated using this kind of source. In a supplementary exploration of so-called shareholder books, it is shown that the home bias phenomenon was indeed present. The bias towards local investments can to a large extent be explained by overall economic and political circumstances, the general performance of the market and the level of activity of the investor. The examination of portfolio choices over the period 1923 to 1955 of the private banker Joseph Frisch, in Stuttgart, shows that the preference for local shares was highest in times of insecurity, low returns and reduced investment activity. Furthermore, the analysis of diary entries of an investor from the late 19th century provides further insights into the investment behavior. The final part of this dissertation gives a general conclusion and a brief outlook about future research.
Political economy and stock markets in long-term perspective
(2016) Opitz, Alexander; Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle
The dissertation finds widespread connections between firms and the parliament in pre- and interwar Germany. It also gives a comprehensive overview of respective firm and party characteristics. Unlike previous work, the sample includes three different periods, representing three distinct political systems. The regime type mattered a lot, since connections did not add value to a firm homogeneously during monarchy, democracy and dictatorship. They proved effective in general only under National Socialist rule, consistent with previous literature. In the Weimar Republic, only political and economic heavyweights paid off, while in Imperial Germany firms could not benefit from a link to the parliament. Various robustness checks are applied, including propensity score matching, coarsened exact matching and panel data analysis. In addition, the probability of a firm to remain on the market is considered: connected firms were more likely to survive than their non-connected counterparts, especially in times of crisis. Furthermore, the dissertation assesses the price reaction of Russian government bonds using event study methodology. The Revolution of 1905 offers an ideal occasion, as it was accompanied by two opposing constitutional changes within a short period of time. The result contributes to the debate as to whether Imperial Russia could possibly have followed other Western European states, i.e. gradually adopting a democratic rule, or whether a revolution was inevitable – as the writing of Soviet history suggests. As it turns out, investors did not perceive the ongoing as a threat. Rather they considered long-run democratic change to be a realistic. Furthermore, the Russo-Japanese War is taken into consideration, resembling the existing literature. The assessment is based on two types of bonds, listed at both the Saint Petersburg and the Berlin Stock Exchange. Investors in the East and West were largely consistent in their reactions.
Savings banks and the industrial revolution in Prussia : supporting regional development with public financial institutions
(2017) Wahl, Fabian; Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle
We show that smaller, regional public financial intermediaries significantly contributed to industrial development, using a new data set of the foundation year and location of Prussian savings banks. This extends the banking-growth nexus beyond its traditional focus on the large universal banks, to savings banks. The saving banks had an impact through the financing of public infrastructure, such as railways, and new private factories. Saving banks were public financial intermediaries, so our results strongly suggest that state intervention can be very successful, particularly in regions in the early stages of industrial development when capital requirements are manageable, and access to international capital markets is limited.
The geography of stock exchanges in Imperial Germany
(2014) Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle; Burhop, Carsten
23 Stock Exchanges were in operation in Germany in 1913. We provide new data about the number of listed firms, their market value, and the number of IPOs between 1897 and 1913 for all exchanges. We assess reasons why a firm opts to be listed at a certain exchange. Large firms tend to be listed and tend to go public at the Berlin Stock Exchange, while the regional stock exchanges were important hosts for small and medium-sized firms. Borders and distance affect listing decisions, suggesting that a patriotic home bias and asymmetric information between issuer and investors affected listing decisions.
The persistence of ownership inequality – investors on the Germanstock exchanges, 1869-1945
(2018) Neumayer, Andreas; Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle
We study the ownership structure of joint-stock firms for the period of 1869 to 1945 based on a unique hand-collected data set. The data covers a selection of 785 general meetings of 276 firms, including details of more than 10,000 investors. We show that after the hyperinflation of 1923, when shares became cheaper, the ownership share among lower social classes rose significantly. Moreover, with the rise of women rights after 1919, the number of shares owned by women also increased significantly. However, despite these shifts, the majority of shares remained in the hands of institutional investors and investors from the upper class, who mainly constituted and controlled the general meetings. Thus, despite the increased participation of women and the lower social classes, a stark inequality of opportunities persisted.
The scientific revolution and its role in the transition to sustained economic growth
(2020) Tscheuschner, Paul; Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle; Prettner, Klaus
We propose a Unified Growth model that analyzes the role of the Scientific Revolution in the takeoff to sustained modern economic growth. Basic scientific knowledge is a necessary input in the production of applied knowledge, which, in turn, fuels productivity growth and leads to rising incomes. Eventually, rising incomes instigate a fertility transition and a takeoff of educational investments and human capital accumulation. In regions where scientific inquiry is severely constrained (for religious reasons or because of oppressive rulers), the takeoff to modern growth is delayed or might not occur at all. The novel mechanism that we propose for the latent transition towards the takeoff could contribute to our understanding of why sustained growth emerged first in Europe.
The value of political connections in the first German democracy : evidence from the Berlin stock exchange
(2017) Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle; Opitz, Alexander
In this paper, we provide the first overview over all political connections for all firms listed on the Berlin stock exchange in 1924 and for the same sample of firms four years later. In contrast to anecdotal evidence which suggest that these political connections had a positive effect on firms’ performance, an event study based on the election in December 1924 and May 1928 shows only little evidence that political connections had a positive impact on firm value. These results complement previous research emphasizing that political connections might have mattered less in democracies. Indeed, this seems true for Germany’s first democracy - even though it was a very unstable one.
Trade and political institutions in late medieval European cities : origins and long-run consequences
(2016) Wahl, Fabian; Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle
The first part of the thesis establishes a link between medieval trade, agglomeration and contemporary regional development in ten European countries. It documents a significant positive relationship between involvement in medieval trade and regional economic development today. The analysis indicates that a long-lasting effect of medieval trade on contemporary regional development is transmitted via its effect on agglomeration and industry concentration. Further empirical analyses show that medieval trade positively influenced city development both during the medieval period and in the long run; they also reveal a robust connection between medieval city growth and contemporary regional agglomeration and industry concentration. This research highlights the long-run importance of medieval trade in shaping the development of cities as well as the contemporary spatial distribution of economic activity throughout Europe. Next, a new city-level data set on political institutions in pre-modern Europe is introduced. It comprises of three variables reporting the prevalence of the different existing types of participative political institutions between 800 and 1800 AD in 104 cities in the Holy Roman Empire. According to historical studies, the three included measures (guild participation in the city council, participative election procedures and the existence of institutionalized burgher representation) represent the universe of political institutions in cities in this era. Based on this data, the next chapter of the thesis investigates the origins of guild revolts and participation in the government of late medieval central European cities. It finds that structural factors, i.e. the prosperity of proto-industry and exogenous events like the agricultural crisis were factors triggering the revolts. Medieval trade cities had a lower probability of guild participation indicating that not economic prosperity per se is decisive but rather that formerly poor groups of citizens like craftsmen profited from the economic upswing. The study also finds evidence for the existence of spatial spillovers implying that strategic considerations played a role in the spread of the revolts. Finally, I investigate the effect of the rise of participative political institutions in late medieval central European cities on city development. The results show, that the enlargement of political participation is not always conducive to city development. The participation of guilds in the city council, for example had an overall neutral or negative effect. Furthermore, the effect of guild participation is declining over time, implying that this form of PPI is prone to institutional degeneration and increased rent-seeking. Election of city government by the citizens, in contrast, shows a stable and robustly positive effect on city development. Hence, the decisive point for more political participation being conducive for economic development is that the increase in participation is accompanied by increased accountability of the politicians and a politics that is oriented toward public welfare than the special interests of particular groups.