This paper provides empirical evidence of interregional risk sharing in reunified Germany. The focus is on two related questions: First, to what extent do private institutions and the public sector provide insurance against asymmetric shocks to individual regions? Second, to what extent does the...

This Ph.D. thesis consists of three chapters and analyzes how economic structures affect political outcomes. In the first chapter, Uwe Sunde and I develop a model to study the endogenous emergence of political regimes in societies in which productive resources are distributed unequally and...

The German experience of the crisis was very different compared to those of most other countries in Europe. Germany was hit by a very strong shock which was relatively concentrated in the exporting, manufacturing industries. In addition, the German labour market was very resilient during the...