Munich (dpa/sn) - In a comparison of the location conditions for family businesses, Saxony is at the top together with Bavaria. In the federal state index presented for the first time on Thursday by the Leibniz Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) on behalf of the Foundation for Family Businesses, the Free State came in second. Only Bavaria was even more attractive. The researchers compared all sixteen German federal states.
The researchers looked at the five areas of taxation, labor and human capital, finance, infrastructure and institutions. The categories were weighted based on the results of a company survey and included in the index to varying degrees - work, human capital and infrastructure were particularly important to family businesses.
According to the study, Saxony was able to score with extraordinarily good framework conditions in the areas of work and human capital as well as financing, but shows weaknesses in the areas of taxes, infrastructure and institutions. Saxony can shine with good values in the sub-indicators of childcare, school education and the level of education of the working population. In addition, the federal state has a very low level of debt and a high availability of subsidies.
Schleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Rhineland-Palatinate came in the lower ranks among the non-city states. The three city states of Bremen, Hamburg and Berlin were examined separately from the non-city states because, according to the authors, they are difficult to compare due to structural differences. Here Hamburg is just behind Berlin, Bremen comes off worse.
According to the study, eastern and western German federal states are similarly distributed in the ranking. This signals "that the initially dramatic economic split has largely been overcome in the years after reunification".
