Introduction -- The empirical puzzle: the post-industrial divergence of Allentown and Youngstown -- Historical antecedents : the emergence and divergence of regional social structures, 1743-1945 -- Two critical choices : invoking social structure in crises -- How Allentown got its groove back :...

It is obvious that the German economy exhibits a significant decline in economic growth during the last two decades. Although the German economy has still to overcome the burden of the reunification in 1990 it is shown that this burden might be only one reason of this decline. In this study we...