Umfang und Messung der öffentlichen Wirtschaft

The state-owned economy includes more than the sum of municipal and government budgets. While it is comparatively simple to define those budgets and their income and expenditure statistically, ‘the public economy’, meaning municipally or governmentally owned industries, operates mostly behind the scenes. Publicly owned funds and compa-nies, the ‘system’ of publicly owned credit banks including the German Federal Bank, the supplementary pension funds of regional government corporations, the ‘system’ of public broadcasting companies, and the ‘system’ of publicly owned foundations are partially supposed to provide vital public services, but they are also often used by politicians to manipulate public budgets (e.g. through the outsourcing of assets) or as instruments of power (such as their disposition without direct parliamentary consultation). Therefore, more transparency through better data records as well as counting, measuring and analys-ing such activities is urgently needed.