This article shows how the impulses of the transformation process in eastern Germany have spread through the economy and the labour market. The form of transformation has long-term effects on the form of control over the economy; it is managed largely from western firms. This fact has manifold...

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...

The study aims to analyze the modalities of vocational training in rural areas in order to identify systematic contents that are relevant to define the perception of the general role of continuing vocational training in the economic and social development of rural areas, the functions of...

In East Germany a profound demographic change has been taking place that manifests itself in the shrinkage and the aging of the population. One major cause is the drop in the East German fertility rates by about half directly after the reunification of Germany in 1990. In no other countries of...

Research on the spatial distribution of economic activity has mainly focussed on identifying conditions that sustain industrial clusters, as they are perceived to be the locus of regional economic growth. Taking this static perspective, today only little is known about the factors that...

Against the background of bad labor market conditions with high unemployment, poor job prospects, and low wages, East Germany used to experience long-standing high net migration outflows. During the last years, however, the situation on the East German labor market changed fundamentally, and...

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...

Exploiting differences in occupation status in East Germany in the last days of World War II and shortly thereafter, we find that regions which – due to their occupation status – experienced a drastic supply problem caused by the influx of great numbers of refugees fleeing from the Red Army...