Die große Krise der Schiffsfinanzierung

Abstract The ship financing crisis of 2008 to 2019 is one of the biggest financial crises in post-war Germany. Two hundred thousand private investors suffered substantial losses. The German merchant fleet was halved. Banks collapsed. What were the causes and what economic policy conclusions can be drawn? Four factors seem to play decisive roles: private capital flows were (in good years) directed by government incentives into critical uses from which they could not be removed in time. The chosen financial structures did not allow for enough governance. Political influence on state banks (“Landesbanken”) facilitated the misallocation of capital. Financing industries with a high level of corruption is dangerous because corruption rubs off and spills over.