The economic forecasts for Germany in the period 2001 to 2003 grossly missed reality. Forecasters estimated an average annual growth rate of 1.6 per cent, but real GDP actually grew by only 0.3 per cent per annum. In 2003 the real GDP in Germany even shrank by 0.1 per cent. Forecasters tend to...

Die wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen der EU zu Russland werden bisher dominiert von Öl- und Gasimporten der EU einerseits und Investitionsgüterimporten Russlands andererseits. Die unmittelbar bevorstehende russische Mitgliedschaft in der Welthandelsorganisation (WTO) wird den Handel insgesamt...

AbstractStudies of the welfare state usually try to find out which factors have contributed to its ascendancy since the end of the nineteenth century and which factors explain the various approaches different countries took in providing a new social insurance to cover new social risks in...

Die Partei Die Linke hat in einem Jahr geschafft, was ihre beiden Vorgängerparteien, WASG und PDS, vergeblich versucht haben: Eine in Ost- und Westdeutschland erfolgreiche Kraft politisch links neben der SPD zu etablieren. Auf der Basis der Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) wird...

AbstractEuropean social policy has two central dimensions: the relation between liberalized market freedoms and social protection, on the one hand, and the distribution of regulatory competencies between the supranational and the national level on the other. The posted workers issue, i.e. the...