Corporate governance in Germany is often described as a bank-oriented, block-holder or stakeholder model where markets for corporate control have not played a significant role. This case study of the hostile takeover of Mannesmann AG by Vodafone in 2000 demonstrates how systemic changes during...

Lobbying by economic actors constitutes a central element of a large part of the literature on trade policy-making. However, it is mainly considered as 'input' into the political system, which then aggregates the demand of different societal interests. As such inputs, the preferences of economic...

Panel data analysis has become very popular in comparative political economy. However, in order to draw meaningful inferences from such data, one has to address specification and estimation issues carefully. This paper aims to demonstrate various pitfalls that typically occur in applied...

Deregulation, technological change, and the integration of markets increase the competitive pressures on forms of national and sectoral governance. The heart of the issue is whether the Continental, consensus-oriented model of capitalism is gravitating toward the Anglo-Saxon, market-oriented...

Against the background of the changing relationships between trade unions and political parties in Western Europe, this paper examines the nature and outcomes of union-party alliances in East Central Europe. The paper advances two interrelated arguments. First, the nature of union-party ties in...

The concept of trust has recently been rediscovered, especially in the fields of economic sociology and organization theory. Nevertheless, the actual functioning of trust in markets has only been understood incompletely up to now. As this paper argues, one reason for this is that...

Das Papier nimmt aus sozialwissenschaftlicher Perspektive zur Debatte über die Zukunft der Aufsichtsratsmitbestimmung Stellung, indem es den Stand der empirischen Mitbestimmungsforschung zusammenfasst und weiterentwickelt. Es weist nach, dass Mitbestimmung auf Ebene der Leitungsorgane in den...

Die politikwissenschaftlichen Bemühungen, das Blockadepotenzial des deutschen Föderalismus in der Gesetzgebungsstatistik nachzuweisen, waren bisher weitgehend erfolglos. So bleibt beispielsweise entgegen der landläufigen Meinung das endgültige Scheitern von Gesetzesentwürfen am Widerstand...

This paper analyzes national processes of pension reform in countries with systems of old-age provision largely following the Bismarckian type (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden). Operating on a defined benefit/pay-as-you-go basis and mainly financed out of wage-based social contributions,...

In den letzten Jahren lassen sich in einigen westeuropäischen Ländern wieder Formen der Konzertierung zwischen Regierungen und Tarifparteien beobachten, in denen die Beteiligten Soziale Pakte schmieden. Das vorliegende Discussion Paper bemüht sich um eine Erklärung des Wiederauflebens von...