The economic transition characterizing the process of European industrialization in the 19th century was concentrated on regions rather than on states. In the first half of the 19th century, the region of Aachen (in the west of Prussia) pioneered on the territory of the German states and...

Today the European welfare states are strongly challenged and it is heavily debated how much social security a society should provide and how much private insurance is possible. This article goes back to the origins of the German welfare state. In the 1830s, industrialists from the district of...

In the early 19th century coal mining in the region of Aachen (Prussian Rhine Province) developed to an industrial scale within few decades production was mechanised and new types of industrial organization emerged that allowed for concentration on production and economies of scale. The region...

The Weimar Republic is analysed within the concept of limited and open access orders. Before World War I, Imperial Germany had developed into a mature limited access order with rule of law and open economic access but lack of competition in politics. After World War I and inflation, Weimar...