Privatization in East Germany: The delivery of an economy

Abstract

Soon after the re-unification of East and West Germany, the West German government chose to swiftly privatize the businesses of its former neighbor. To oversee this process, the government set up an independent agency, the Treuhandanstalt, which did its work from July 1990 to December 1994. In that time, thousands of businesses were converted to private ownership, and jobs were secured for 1.5 million employees. Von der Heyden discusses the efficacy of the project, its successes and failures, and how applicable the German model may be for other governments seeking a complete privatization of their countries' assets.