Vielfach wurde Deutschland in der Vergangenheit durch die Medien als Exportweltmeister bezeichnet. Die aktuelle Diskussion in Hinblick auf die von Hans-Werner Sinn aufgestellte Basarökonomiethese befasst sich mit der Frage nach der Vorteilhaftigkeit dieses Titels für Deutschland, zumal der...

Human development is about expanding the choices human beings have to lead lives that they value and is captured by its capability sets which consist of various functioning vectors. The standard of living is then reflected in capability sets. This paper proposes some particular ways of measuring...

This paper provides a political-economy explanation of the degree of centralization in economic policy making. To determine which policies are to be centralized, regions select representatives who then negotiate the degree of centralization and the regional cost shares of centrally decided...

Innerhalb weniger Jahrzehnte hat sich der deutsche Arbeitsmarkt vom Vorbild zum Negativbeispiel verändert. Die Erklärung wird hier im Zusammenwirken von Schocks und Institutionen gesucht. Zwar fördern Regelungen wie der Beschäftigungsschutz die Unter-nehmens-interne Anpassung; die...

The real economic effects of the considerably high appreciation in Central European Economies (CEE) are controversially disputed in the eve of the European Monetary Union (EMU) entry of several CEE economies. The Balassa-Samuelson-effect was made responsible for the expectation of higher...

A very prominent instrument of regional policy is to foster education and human capital for-mation in economically lagging regions. However, this type of regional policy might actually hurt instead of help the recipient areas. The reason is that individual geographical mobility increases with...

Most analysts of the modern Latin American economy hold to a pessimistic belief in historical persistence -- they believe that Latin America has always had very high levels of inequality, suggesting it will be hard for modern social policy to create a more egalitarian society. This paper argues...