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Editorial

Nach ersten großen Aufholschritten stagniert seit etwa zehn Jahren der wirtschaftliche Aufholprozeß Ostdeutschlands. Der Produktivitätsabstand von rund einem Drittel gegenüber Westdeutschland schließt sich trotz erheblichen Fördermitteleinsatzes nicht. Benötigen wir nach der ersten großen Anstrengung im Einigungsprozeß einen zweiten, aber anders strukturierten Kraftakt, um die Angleichung zu beschleunigen? Licht und Schatten liegen nahe beieinander. Die Produktivität wuchs durch hohe Investitionen erheblich, beispielsweise in der Chemie, dem Fahrzeugbau, der Mikroelektronik oder der Solar- und Umwelttechnik. Aber flächendeckend wurde diese Entwicklung nicht wirksam: So öffnet sich bei haushaltsbezogenen Dienstleistungen angesichts fehlender Nachfrage die Produktivitätsschere. Manchen Regionen mit hohem Rentneranteil, bisher infolge der hohen Altersbezüge aus dem Einigungsprozeß stabilisiert, wird durch nunmehr brüchigere Versicherungsbiographien Kaufkraft entzogen, was die private Nachfrage dort einbrechen läßt.

28. June 2007

Authors Ulrich Blum

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Also in this issue

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Das Programm „Stadtumbau Ost“ und seine wirtschaftlichen Effekte für die beteiligten Städte

Claus Michelsen Martin T. W. Rosenfeld

in: Wirtschaft im Wandel, No. 6, 2007

Abstract

Political measures in the field of urban development have relevant impacts on the local and regional economy, for example on private investment, the value of real estate or the image of a city. An evaluation of national (federal) programs for the support of urban development would not be complete without considering these impacts. For the measures, which are supported by the federal program for support on “Urban Redevelopment in East Germany” (“Stadtumbau Ost”), the economic conditions of the supported cities have played, so far, only a minor role. One expression for this is that the measures for demolishing (“Rückbau”) were concentrated on quarters with prefabricated buildings. From the perspective of local and regional economic development, there have also been failures in the allocation of money for increasing the value of real estate (“Aufwertung”), as the article shows for the example of the state of Saxony.

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Demographic development and its economic consequences

Joachim Ragnitz Lutz Schneider

in: Wirtschaft im Wandel, No. 6, 2007

Abstract

Within the next decades, East Germany will continue to face strong demographic challenges. In addition to shrinking, the ageing of population and labour force will more and more affect the economic development of the new Länder. Against this background, the question rises whether the shift of workforce age structure will influence growth and innovation potential as well as structural change. The IWH recently has focused on this topic widely ignored by the research literature so far. On the basis of selected methods and data, the economic impact of workforce ageing was empirically evaluated. The first issue concerns the impact of age on productivity. Based on two separate empirical investigations, the conclusion can be drawn that above a certain stage, age diminishes productivity. But higher levels of experience might partly compensate for this reduction. Secondly, the innovation effects of ageing have been analyzed. Again, significant age effects arise. Employees at the age of about 40 years turn out to be the most innovative part of the workforce. Furthermore, the analysis shows that engineers are particularly subject to age effects. A third study sheds light on the challenging consequences of ageing on entrepreneurship potential. Hence, independently of the increasing problem of skill shortages, ageing itself will unfavourably affect growth, innovation and structural change. Though political options are limited due to the more or less fixed demographic trends, appropriate instruments regarding economic, family and education policy might lower the identified age effects.

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Der Einfluß von Führungsfunktionen auf das Regionaleinkommen: eine ökonometrische Analyse deutscher Regionen

Ulrich Blum

in: Wirtschaft im Wandel, No. 6, 2007

Abstract

We analyze the income position of German regions based on the concept of input potentials by estimating regional production functions. The concept, developed in the late 1970s, suggests that the regional production frontier depends on input capacities that can be over- or underutilized, once a benchmark, i.e. a national yardstick, is defined. In this paper, this concept is taken up and applied to united Germany. Including variables that capture headquarter and R&D effects of firms on regional income to account for the entrepreneurial competence in regions extends a recent paper. It is shown that headquarter functions play a decisive role in describing the east-west income divide. In total, 85% of the East’s average income lag is explained by three factors: technology, headquarter functions, and transport accessibility.

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Die Entwicklung des Arbeitsmarkts in Sachsen-Anhalt

Reiner Haseloff

in: Wirtschaft im Wandel, No. 6, 2007

Abstract

Sachsen-Anhalt verzeichnete in den letzten zwei Jahren einen überdurchschnittlichen Rückgang der Arbeitslosigkeit. Die Zahl der Arbeitslosen im ersten Quartal dieses Jahres lag um rund 70 000 Personen bzw. um fast ein Viertel unter der im ersten Quartal 2005. Zwar hat dieser Rückgang viele Gründe, es läßt sich jedoch festhalten, daß allein im vergangenen Jahr über 21 000 zusätzliche sozialversicherungspflichtige Beschäftigungsverhältnisse entstanden sind. Auch die Zahl der arbeitslosen Jugendlichen unter 25 Jahren konnte in Sachsen-Anhalt binnen der letzten zwei Jahre um etwa 37% gesenkt werden – die Jugendarbeitslosenquote ist mit 14,0% nach Thüringen die geringste unter den neuen Ländern.

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Einkommenssicherung, Arbeitsmarktpolitik und Beschäftigung in Ostdeutschland

Herbert S. Buscher

in: Wirtschaft im Wandel, No. 6, 2007

Abstract

The paper presents three approaches currently discussed, which might be useful attempts to protect income not to fall below a certain threshold. These concepts are either useful in the case of unemployment or for employees in the low wage sector of the economy. The approaches discussed have recently been published or have been discussed in the public. These are a minimum wage concept, a special variant of subsidized wages as favoured by the German Council of Economic Experts, and finally a workfare approach as suggested by the IZA Bonn. After briefly discussing the estimated employment effects of the various approaches, the paper addresses the question how the East German labour market will be affected by these measures.

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Humankapital und Produktivität in Ostdeutschland

Joachim Ragnitz

in: Wirtschaft im Wandel, No. 6, 2007

Abstract

The paper shows that East Germany has a significant lower endowment with human capital compared to West Germany when actual professional activities are taken into account. This is by equal means due to a smaller share of human capital intensive industries and a lower human capital intensity in most industries. As a consequence, people with higher qualifications face severe difficulties to find a job in East Germany. This again is one reason for migration flows to West Germany, leading to a still worsening human capital endowment in the new Laender. It can be shown that lower human capital intensity is one reason for the still existing human capital gap between East and West Germany. Convergence prospects are therefore not as good as often supposed.

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Long-Term Growth Projections for Eastern Germany

Udo Ludwig

in: Wirtschaft im Wandel, No. 6, 2007

Abstract

Recent research comes to the conclusion that the eastern part of Germany not only heavily de-pends on its western counterpart, but that it essentially is dying a slow death. Arguments for this point of view reach from deindustrialisation and the lack of Headquarters of national and international Corporations to the rapidly aging society. The study at hand assumes that economic development in a specific region does not only de-pend on the quantity and quality of its factors of production, but also on the overall conditions in the national economy a region is connected to. The analysis uses a framework in which the regional production factors are limited to the population and its development. Just as produc-tion, output is restricted to the value added of the region. Since data is only available for the ten years between 1995 - 2005, a panel econometric approach was chosen. For this purpose, the 97 spatial planning regions of Germany (Raumordnungsregionen) were divided into four groups according to their economic growth; slightly surprising, nine regions from Central Germany and Brandenburg fall into the top two groups. The estimation results show that both economic growth in Germany as a whole as well as increases in the regional number of inhabitants positively influence regional value added. Fur-thermore, the impact of national growth is largest in the group with the highest regional value added and lowest in the group with the smallest regional output. On the other hand, lagged values of regional growth have the greatest impact in the low growth group and the smallest impact in the high growth group. The main result of the study is that regional economic growth will not necessarily stop when the population is shrinking. After 2020, though, the growth rates of the gross domestic prod-uct will decrease. At the same time, the growth disparities between the different regions will not decline, a process aided by the demographic developments in Germany.

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