Despite rapid economic integration and massive help from the Federal Government East German productivity catching up faded out in the nineties. This paper presents panel-data estimates of the productivity adjustment based on a production function framework and a stylized adjustment model of the...

The ifo firm panel includes a large set of data for West German manufacturing firms from 1980-92 which permits a detailed analysis of firm behaviour. In this paper, estimates of the impact and the determinants of innovation behaviour are presented. The empirical results reveal that innovative...

Nearly 20 years after unification large differences of the labor market situation in East and West Germany persist. Wages are still considerably lower, the unemployment rate is about twice of the West German level, and the competitiveness of the East German economy seems to be low. This paper...