Monitoring economic concentration has been part of our core remit since the Monopolies Commission was established in 1974 – born of the conviction that competition must not only be protected by law, but also scientifically monitored and publicly assessed. Since then, every two years we have analysed trends in corporate concentration in Germany in our main report and, on this basis, advised policymakers, public authorities and the public. In doing so, we distinguish between these two approaches:
The Top 100
Since 1974, the Monopolies Commission has regularly compiled a ranking of the 100 largest companies in Germany – as an indicator of the concentration of economic and political power. Since 1978, the key indicator has been domestic net value added. The associated dataset covers key performance indicators such as value added, business volumes and employee numbers spanning five decades. In addition, information on shareholders and members of management and supervisory bodies is recorded, making it possible, amongst other things, to trace the personnel links between major German companies. The data is available to researchers and the public.
Business concentration
In addition to the ranking of the 100 largest companies, the Monopolies Commission calculates various competition and productivity indicators – including price mark-ups and labour productivity – as part of its reporting on market concentration. These are based on company-level data, which is aggregated to reflect trends in the manufacturing sector and across industrial groups. These analyses make it possible to systematically categorise structural changes in the German business landscape.
Methodology and Results
All the findings of the merger reporting can be found in the Monopolies Commission’s latest main report. A detailed description of the data and the methodology used can be found in Chapter 1.
On the latest merger reporting