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Information on Mittelstand enterprises

  • practice-oriented
  • interdisciplinary
  • applied research

 

Dossier Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy per se fulfills important economic functions: It helps to ensure legal certainty, planning security and equal treatment.

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SME Development Barometer

IfM Bonn uses the "Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises", to report semiannually on the current ...

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IfM Bonn News

The federal government must now pave the way for the future

"According to a recent short survey, the vast majority of managing directors in Germany’s Mittelstand sector are calling on the new federal government to ensure reliable and consistent policy frameworks – and to refrain from excessive regulatory steering. This applies in particular to the ecological …

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Less than half of all start-ups survive the first 5 years

Approximately 360,000 new enterprise were founded in Germany in 2024. It’s not just the number of start-ups that matters for an economy, but also their long-term survival.

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IfM-Position Paper

In need of a paradigm shift – Rethinking bureaucracy reduction and regulation policies

Highly complex economies and societies need regulations to ensure their ability to function. These ensure legal and planning certainty and prevent corruption. However, especially in the view of SMEs, the "optimal" level of bureaucracy – which is difficult to determine empirically – seems to be far exceeded by now.

According to a recent study by IfM Bonn (Holz, Icks & Nielen 2023), the bureaucratic burden on companies goes well beyond the statistically measured time and cost expenditures.

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Figure of the months

For nearly

70%

of the industrial companies the EU internal market is the most important foreign procurement market, for more than 75 % it is the most important sales market abroad.

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Policy Brief "Entrepreneurship in Focus"

Financed maternity benefits for self-employed women?

Self-employed women can voluntarily insure themselves against loss of earnings during the maternity protection period through health insurance.

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Cooperation with University of Siegen

Cooperation with University of Siegen

Zukunftspanel Mittelstand

Zukunftspanel Mittelstand

NUI region ranking

NUI region ranking

Offensive Mittelstand

Offensive Mittelstand

Data of the IfM Bonn

Data of the IfM Bonn

Third party research

Third party research