The Universal Banks and the Mobilization of Capital in Imperial Germany

Abstract

Capital mobilization represents a serious obstacle to industrialization. By stimulating savings, matching savers and investors, and offering advice to entrepreneurs, universal banks are believed to have eased such problems during the later stages of the German industrialization. Using evidence on deposit taking, branching, and banks' liability structure as well as the extent of interlocking directorates between banks and industrial companies, this paper demonstrates that the universal banks played a limited part in capital mobilization and expansion until the start of the twentieth century. The paper shows, however, that networks of the provincial banks enveloped a broad range of industrial companies.

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