“Two archeologists contemplate ruins of a defunct civilization. One comments to the other: I guess their paradigm ran out.”

(Patricia Hetter Kelso)

The Kelso Institute Europe is undertaking applied Research on Participatory Economics and Renewables for a Sustainable Future. This mission is to be sustained in close cooperation with the Kelso Professorship at European University Viadrina.

Highlights:

Book cover

Book

Energy Transition – Financing Consumer Co-Ownership in Renewables

Over 2000 copies sold!

Presents methodology and measures to demonstrate best practice in how such a co-ownership model could work. Provides case studies highlighting experiences from various parts of the world. Introduces new financing instruments for facilitating energy transition.

The cover of Sociedades Laborales

Book

Sociedades Laborales: Activating the Unemployed

A Potential New EU Active Labour Market Policy Instrument. This book investigates the potential of the Spanish Sociedades Laborales (SLs) as an instrument of active labour market policy for re-turning the unemployed to the labour market and also the transferability of the scheme to other EU Member States. Written by Jens Lowitzsch, Sophie Dunsch and Iraj Hashi.

The cover of the SCORE Final Report

Report

SCORE Final Report

The SCORE Final Report “Consumer Stock Ownership Plans (CSOPs) – Financing Energy Communities” is now available.

The publication presents on 60 pages aims, actions and success stories of the SCORE project, which was officially concluded by the end of 2021.

The cover of the BMWI study

Report

Incidence of employee share ownership in Germany and Europe

Published in April 2020 under the aegis of the Kelso Chair (European University Viadrina) and commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

Report

Twelve Year Report

The Twelve Year Report on the activities of the Kelso Institute Europe and the Kelso Professorship of Comparative Law at the European University Viadrina from 2010 to 2022.

Published in September 2022.

Report

The Promotion of Employee Ownership and Participation

Prepared by the Inter-University Centre for European Commission’s DG MARKT
(Contract MARKT/2013/0191F2/ST/OP), Final report – October 2014

About the Kelso`s

Louis O. Kelso (1913-1991)

He believed in the promethean power of people. He wrote “The Capitalist Manifesto” even though he did not like the title chosen by the editor. Kelso was the American lawyer and investment banker, who revolutionised the classic economic theories, a man who created facts where others just talked about utopias. Kelso’s ideas and especially their implementation even today offer solutions for current societal problems.

Patricia Hetter Kelso (*1927)

President of the Kelso Institute for the Study of Economic Systems, San Francisco. The Kelso Institute maintains the intellectual legacy of Louis O. Kelso (December 4, 1913 – February 17, 1991). It houses his library, which includes not only literature on Louis Kelso’s research areas but also his writings. Louis O. Kelso was a political economist, corporate and financial lawyer, author, lecturer and merchant banker who is chiefly remembered today as the inventor and pioneer of the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). As prototypes of the leveraged buyout the ESOP and its twin concept the Consumer Stock Ownership Plan (CSOP) enable working people and consumers without savings to buy stock in their employer company or utilities that serve them and pay for it out of the future dividend yield.

The Institute

The Kelso Institute Europe is designated to become home to the continuation of Louis O Kelso’s and Patricia Hetter Kelso’s mission. Its geographic position between the West and the East is a huge asset for becoming a global centre for new ideas and contributing significantly to the further deepening of the European Union and sustainable development worldwide.

This undertaking is to be sustained in close cooperation with the Kelso Professorship of Comparative Law, East European Business Law and European Legal Policy which Dr. Lowitzsch in 2022 is now conducting in its eleventh academic year at the European University Viadrina. A second complementary resource is the Inter-University Centre (EUROPA-UNIVERSITÄT VIADRINA | FREIE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN | SVEUČILIŠTE U SPLITU | UNIVERSITÉ PARIS 1 PANTHÉON-SORBONNE) founded in 2000 by Prof. Herwig Roggemann and directed by Dr. Lowitzsch.