After the fall of the Berlin wall, the total fertility rate in East Germany tumbled from 1.7 (1989) to a stunning 0.7 children per woman (1994). While this fact is well-documented, little is still known about the crisis underlying causes. We propose a new explanation: permanent shifts in the...

There is a successful and growing number of studies published in top-economics journals that exploit the division and re-unification of Germany as a natural experiment for analysing the effects of political regimes on economic behaviour. One strand of the literature shows that socialism shaped...

1 Problemstellung¤ 2 Gang der Untersuchung¤ 3 Sozialhilfeaufwand und Empfänger/innen von Sozialhilfe¤ 3.1 Ausgaben für die Sozialhilfe. 3.2 Zahl und Struktur der Empfänger/innen von Sozialhilfeleistungen¤ 4 Wie groß ist der Lohnabstand?¤ 4.1 Der Sozialhilfeanspruch in Abhängigkeit von...

Inhalt: Nickel, Hildegard-Maria: Frauen und Arbeitsmarktforschung in der ehemaligen DDR (3 Thesen). - Engelbrech, Gerhard: Der Arbeitsmarkt für Frauen in den alten und neuen Bundesländern. - Schenk, Sabine: Qualifikationsstruktur und Qualifikationsbedarf erwerbstätiger Frauen in den neuen...

We demonstrate that almost one half of the observed wage gap between East and West Germany reflects differences in worker, establishment, and regional characteristics rather than differences in productivity at the establishment level. Regional price and establishment size differentials alone...

Public sector activities are often neglected in economic approaches to analyze the driving forces of urban growth and changes in urban hierarchies. One crucial aspect of public sector activities is the institutional status of cities as regional capital. The paper is reporting on a quasi natural...