Losing Ground: Business Power, Standardized Assets and the Regulation of Land Acquisition Taxes in Germany and Sweden

IMPRS Colloquium

  • Datum: 09.01.2023
  • Uhrzeit: 15:00
  • Vortragende: Hanna Doose
  • Doctoral Researcher, IMPRS-SPCE
Losing Ground: Business Power, Standardized Assets and the Regulation of Land Acquisition Taxes in Germany and Sweden

Previous literature on the nexus between land, finance and business power has not yet systematically analysed the role of the liquidity of businesses’ assets. Combining process tracing with a comparative design, this study adds a perspective on the role of standardized assets for business power. It investigates land acquisition tax reforms, asking why structural and instrumental power of institutional landowners was successful in Sweden while in Germany a reform was passed in 2021 which disadvantages the private market institutional landowners in comparison to their public counterparts. It argues that the standardization of landed property as liquid stock enabled the publicly listed property companies to unite with other stock market actors, increasing their power sources and leading them to succeed with their interests due to the liquidity demands of their assets. This stands in contrast to a worse reception of the liquidity of private market actors in their land related transactions.

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