Wirken die über 40 Jahre bestehenden Systemunterschiede auch 28 Jahre nach der Wende noch nach? Die Ergebnisse einer neuen ifo-Studie zeigen, dass in vielen gesellschaftlichen Teilbereichen ein steter Annäherungsprozess im Gang ist und dass sich die Auffassungen in den beiden Landesteilen eher...

European policies imposed in the euro crisis have disabled democratic policy choices at the national level, while the present European euro-rescuing regime lacks democratic legitimacy. But policy choices might now become politicised in the Europe-wide competition of partisan candidates for the...

Theories of the economic evolution of societies and their diversity are critically examined, paying particular attention to the evolution of hunter-gatherer societies. An interdisciplinary approach drawing on anthropology and economics is adopted. Currently, three main stereotypes of the nature...

ifo-Präsident Clemens Fuest setzt sich in seiner Rede anlässlich der Preisverleihung »Impulsrede zur Sozialen Marktwirtschaft« durch den Wirtschaftspolitischen Club Deutschland mit der Idee der Sozialen Marktwirtschaft und ihrer Bedeutung in der Gegenwart auseinander.

Nepotism usually means hiring relatives, close friends, regardless of their merits and abilities. This would be a simple definition of nepotism, which as we all know, rapidity became the "criterion" and an issue favourable for employment leading people by family ties, while corruption is a...

I examine the relationship between democracy and the perceived risk of corruption in a panel of 130 countries. My panel model controls for country fixed effects and enables the estimation of a within-country relationship between democracy and corruption. My main finding is that democracy...

In a recent contribution to this journal, Deng et al. (2021) draw on an extensive range of theoretical and empirical literature to make the case for the tendency of social capital resources of agricultural cooperatives in the Western world to decline over time. The present paper revisits this...

Rapid technological change is often touted as a fundamental reality of capitalist societies. It is also presented as concrete evidence for the supposed progressive improvement of material well-being that characterises the capitalist system of social order. Since its emergence in the mid-20th...