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Open Access August 9, 2023

Injecting climate finance into SME lending in Germany: Opportunities for and limitations of regional savings and cooperative Banks

Franz Flögel, Philipp Schepelmann, Hans-Martin Zademach, Michael Zörner

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Abstract

Although small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) contribute considerably to Germany’s carbon emissions, regional savings and cooperative banks − SMEs’ most important financiers − hardly consider this aspect in lending to these businesses. However, given Germany’s commitment to climate neutrality by 2045, suitable approaches for injecting climate finance into these SME lending processes are greatly required. Against this background, the paper at hand aims to introduce the specific case of regional banks into the debate on green finance and green banking and suggest future research in this context. In discussing the state of research on the peculiarities of regional savings and cooperative banks, we outline the resulting opportunities and limitations for climate impact assessments in SME lending. We argue that while the dual bottom-line orientation of regional banks in Germany precludes them from applying simple positive or negative screenings, their in-depth knowledge about local clients and circumstances enables them to be active and engaging partners for the green transformation of SMEs. Nonetheless, we explain why developing solutions to utilise this knowledge for climate finance by integrating climate impact assessments into routine lending processes remains a particularly challenging task.

Open Access November 19, 2021

Hidden Champions and their integration in rural regional innovation systems: Insights from Germany

Carsten Rietmann

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Abstract

This article studies the integration of Hidden Champions – little-known highly innovative global market leaders – in rural regional innovation systems (RIS) in Germany. These firms are analyzed in relation to their integration into a RIS framework, which differentiates two subsystems: knowledge generation and diffusion, and knowledge application and exploitation. The relevance of firm-internal and firm-external regional influencing factors on rural RIS integration is examined. The article proposes that Hidden Champions are weakly integrated in RIS due to their international sales focus and high technological specialization. To test this premise, 57 expert interviews with Hidden Champions and regional actors were conducted. It was found that key influences for RIS integration of this firm type are ownership structure, firm size, organizational status, location economies, and urbanization economies. Family businesses are on average more integrated than other firm types, but vary significantly in their integration.

September 8, 2021

Hidden Champions as a Determinant of Regional Development: An Analysis of German Districts

Lena Benz, Jörn H. Block, Matthias S. Johann

Abstract

Hidden Champions (HCs) are defined as market leaders in niche markets. They represent the success of the German Mittelstand like no other group of firms. However, little is known on how HCs contribute to regional development. Given their export strength, regional embeddedness, and strong vertical integration we expect HCs to have a profound effect on regional development. Using a German dataset of 1,645 HCs located in 401 German districts, we analyze the effect of HCs on a variety of regional development dimensions. Our results show that HCs are not equally distributed across regions and influence regional development. Regions with a higher number of HCs show strong regional economic performance in terms of median income. Moreover, HC intensity affects regional unemployment and trainee rates as well as regional innovation in terms of patents. Surprisingly, we did not find an effect of regional HC intensity on regional R&D levels and GDP. We can further conclude that the effect of HCs is not limited to the particular region in which they are located but that sizable spillover effects exist. Besides its contribution to the regional development literature, our study adds to a better understanding of the HC-phenomenon. Implications for regional policy makers are discussed.

About this journal

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Call for Papers – Special Issue
Shaping Globalisation: Revisiting the State-Global Production Network Nexus

Guest editors: Martin Hess & Rory Horner (University of Manchester)

Further Information

Deadline (Abstracts): June 19^th, 2023

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Call for Papers – Special Issue
Complementarity of Locations: challenges of sustainability and disruptions

Guest editors: Ram Mudambi (Temple University, USA) & Pengfei Li (University of Calgary, Canada)

Further Information

Deadline (Abstracts): March 31^st, 2024

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Starting with issue 1/2022, the former journal Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie (The German Journal of Economic Geography) will be relaunched under the new title ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography. With ongoing internationalization of academic disciplines, the journal has made the decision to open up to the global academic community by focusing on English-language publications.

To support the relaunch and invite a broad readership, ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography will be transferred to Diamond Open Access on a year-by-year basis, starting with the 2022 volume. All articles will immediately appear under the Creative Commons license CC-BY, at no publication costs for the authors. The Open Access transformation is based on Subscribe-to-Open, an alternative model that enables the full Open Access transformation of journals through the continuation of existing subscriptions. The prerequisite for successful transformation is that subscriptions are continued to the same extent as before. The editors of ZFW and the publisher De Gruyter would therefore like to thank all subscribers for their support, which has made the transformation to Open Access possible.

ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography aims to become a driver of and contributor to the global knowledge architecture in the field of economic geography broadly defined through its commitment to diversity regarding innovative themes and authors and by pushing for a non-partisan cross-disciplinary agenda. It invites contributions that develop novel conceptualizations and present new empirical insights into economic structures, processes and practices, as well as their variations and outcomes in spatial perspective. Themes of particular interest include the actors and institutions shaping regional economic development, the institutional and socio-economic triggers of localized knowledge generation and innovation, the flows of people, knowledge and resources over distance, the development and persistence of unequal economic geographies worldwide, the global organization of capitalism and its evolution in spatial perspective, the impact of new societal challenges across space, and related topical areas.