In a globalized world with high international factor mobility, crises often spread quickly over large parts of the world. Politicians carry a vital interest in keeping crises as small and short as possible. Against this background we study whether the type of company of owner-managed SMEs, in Germany well-known as Mittelstand firms, helps increasing an economy’s crisis resistance. We study this issue at the example of the Great Recession of the years 2008/2009. Using micro panel data from the ifo Business Survey, we study the comparative performance of Mittelstand enterprises and find supporting evidence for the hypothesis that Mittelstand firms performed more stable throughout the Great Recession than non-Mittelstand firms. We also show that owner-managed SMEs performed significantly better than SMEs and owner-managed large enterprises. Thus, it is rather the combination of firm size and owner-management that leads to more crisis resistance.

在国际要素高度流动的全球化世界中，危机往往会迅速蔓延到世界大部分地区。政治家们对将危机控制得尽可能小、时间越短至关重要。在此背景下，我们研究了所有者经营的中小企业（在德国被称为中小型企业）的公司类型是否有助于增强经济体的危机抵抗力。我们以 2008/2009 年大衰退为例研究这个问题。我们利用 ifo 商业调查的微观面板数据，研究了中小型企业的比较绩效，并找到了支持这一假设的支持证据，即中小型企业在整个大衰退期间的表现比非中小型企业更稳定。我们还表明，所有者经营的中小企业的表现明显优于中小企业和所有者经营的大型企业。因此，企业规模和所有者管理的结合导致了更多的危机抵抗力。