Since the German re?unification in 1990, Eastern Germany is a transition economy. After a phase of catching up of productivity with respect to Western Germany from 1991 to 1996, the growth rates in the producing sector have dropped below the Western German ones since 1997. This study...

Using different regional data sources for East Germany the three largest active labour market policy (ALMP) programmes – job creation schemes (JCS), structural adjustment schemes (SAS) and public training (PT) – are evaluated. After addressing the regional allocation rule of the funding of...

This paper reviews the current state of knowledge on the link between education and wage inequality in Germany. The wage inequality is characterized by its stability, although a more detailed analysis reveals structural differences, especially between East and West Germany. Both the between and...

Exploiting the unique economic situation after German unification, I investigate how exit decisions deviate between new firms in a transition and a comparatively stable market environment. Two competing exit mechanisms are considered: entrepreneurial self-selection via voluntary liquidation and...

This paper evaluates the effects of Public Sponsored Training in East Germany in the context of reiterated treatments. Selection bias based on observed characteristics is corrected for by applying kernel matching based on the propensity score. We control for further selection and the presence of...

Der Beitrag untersucht die Effektivität der Innovationsförderung in den neuen Ländern. Dabei wird ein doppelter Vergleich angestellt. Zum einen analysieren wir die Auswirkungen der Förderung hinsichtlich der FuE-Anreize und der FuE-Ergebnisse durch einen Vergleich von geförderten und...

This paper investigates the evolution of wages and the recent tendency to rising wage inequality in Germany, based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for 1984 to 2004. Between 1984 and 1994 the wage distribution was fairly stable. Wage inequality started to increase around 1994 in...

Using register data from the IAB employment sample, this paper studies the wage structure in the German labor market throughout the years 1992{2001. Wage dispersion has generally been rising. The increase was more pronounced in East Germany and occurred predominantly in the lower part of the...

The paper analyses the theoretical and empirical relationship between employment, skill structure and innovation in East and West German manufacturing firms. The econometric part builds on firm data from the Mannheim Innovation Panel 1993, 1994 and 1995. In the German industrial sector,...

At the start of the German unification process it was a commonly held view that east German living conditions will converge to west Geman levels within a few years. This view was not only held by notoriously optimistic politicians but also by a great many of professional economists. With...