This paper answers the question which developing countries have gained and which have lost in the international division of labor during the last thirty years. The indicators used are GDP per capita in constant purchasing power parity and relative distance to the United States. Nearly all...

This paper analyzes some of the elements of the new economy. What is really new is first of all the technological innovation. In economic terms what is new is a new product. The new IT product brought about by the new technology means two different things: a new device to handle data and to...

This paper analyzes how international rules are established and stabilized, i.e. how an international institutional order develops. Rules emerge mainly through learning from negative experience and serve to reduce transaction costs. The paper looks at mechanisms that stabilize rule systems, at...

This paper studies the concept of an international economic order, i.e. an institutional arrangement of international rules. Such rules emerge from negative experiences – historical disasters – that inflict severe hardship on people. A taxonomy for rules reducing transaction costs is...

Krugman's verdict that competitiveness of countries is a largely meaningless concept is a serious misjudgement of the economics profession. Countries compete for the mobile factors of production, most importantly for capital and technology. The exit-option of these factors and of firms changes...

This paper discusses the goal conflict between social protection and economic growth as well as employment. Taking the German economy as an example for the large continental economies of Old Europe, it analyzes twenty mechanisms that affect the fundamentals of the economy negatively and imply...