Germany remains Europe's largest and most diversified source of new technology, but still lags in the fastest growing areas of today's high technology. After World War II, West-German technology policy sought to rebuild the institutions which had supported Germany's leadership in the high-tech...

Declining spatial transaction costs will affect patterns of urban specialization. The underlying hypothesis is that production locations of goods and services which require face-to-face contacts will continue to be concentrated in core cities of large agglomerations even in the Internet age...

The paper discusses central avenues of reform in the pension and health system. The core issues are the distinction of large and small risks and the role of a competitive approach to reorganise the health system.