SITE MAP EDUCATION PAGE ECON & BUS GEOG RESOURCES A-Z INDEX


Treuhandanstalt

(http://faculty.washington.edu/krumme/german/treuhand.html)
A key role in the economic restructuring process in the new federal states was played by the Treuhandanstalt or Trust Agency, a public privatization agency. Its task was to privatize, reorganize or, if necessary, liquidate the former state assets of the GDR between 1990 and the end of 1994, make companies competitive, and make land available for industrial or commercial purposes. To this end, the Trust Agency worked to ensure the liquidity of firms, furnish the assistance necessary for their reorganization, find investors and conclude the requisite contracts.

Treuhandanstalt,
im Zuge des Einigungsprozesses von ehemaliger DDR und BR Deutschland (Vertrag über die Währungs-, Wirtschafts- und Sozialunion vom 18. 5. 1990, Einigungsvertrag vom 31. 8. 1990) errichtete rechtsfähige bundesunmittelbare Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts, die der Aufsicht des Bundesmin. für Finanzen untersteht. Ihre Aufgabe ist es, die früheren volkseigenen Betriebe auf dem Gebiet der ehemaligen DDR wettbewerblich zu strukturieren und zu privatisieren. Sitz Berlin, mit Nebenstellen in sämtl. Bezirken der ehemaligen DDR. (Boku Wien)

(Treuhand) Site of Bundesregierung (Press and Information Office) (English)

Vom Plan zum Markt (Fernuniversitaet Hagen)

Die Berliner Treuhandanstalt (THA) und ihre Nachfolgerin, die Bundesanstalt für vereinigungsbedingte Sonderaufgaben (BvS), hatten die für den Erfolg der deutschen Vereinigung vielleicht wichtigste Aufgabe übernommen: Sie sollten die sozialistischen Planwirtschaft der DDR in eine "blühende" Marktwirtschaft verwandeln.

"PRIVATIZATION IN EAST GERMANY," BY: Dan Anderson, McGill University The Michigan Journal of Economics (On-Line)

Clippings:

Germany 10 Years After the Fall of the Wall Deutsche Welle, Nov.12, 1999

The organisation that was set up to achieve that task was the privatization agency, the Treuhand. Peter Craven remembers that there was a lot of criticism of the role played by this agency: "It was like a back-yard sale. A lot of companies were simply being sold off in a rather uncompetitive way, in a manner that wasn't entirely serious and I think a lot of carpetbaggers from the West were encouraged to move in, buy up companies, taking subsidies, make some money and run."

Other Literature:

Dyck, Alexander, "Privatization in Eastern Germany: Management Selection and Economic Transition," American Economic Review, 87(4), Sept. 1997, pp.565-97.

Giersch, Herbert, ed., Privatization at the End of the Century. N.Y.: Springer 1997. [incl. paper by Bös on Treuhand] [Brief abstract in JEL June 1998, p.1053]

Windolf, Paul, "The Integration of East German Firms into the Western Market Economy," in: Stefan Immerfall, ed., Territoriality in the Globalizing Society: One Place or None. Springer 1998. [HF1359.T39]

Return to Contemporary Germany

Return to Contemporary Germany || Econ & Bus Geog
2000 [econgeog@u.washington.edu]