Business Networks in the Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Halle Regions: Do Member Firms Locate in Spatial Proximity?
Gerhard Heimpold
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 4,
2010
Abstract
The business landscape in East Germany mainly consists of small and medium-sized firms. This in mind, business networks may contribute to an improvement of the economic performance of firms which collaborate in business networks. For successful networking a mix of network members being locally concentrated on the one side and of partners from distant regions, especially from abroad, on the other side, is important. In regional economics, this duality is highlighted for two reasons: personal contacts of partners which are located in spatial proximity to each other may ease the transfer of tacit knowledge. The flow of tacit knowledge can be regarded as a factor which enhances innovation processes. However, the inclusion of partners from abroad is important, too. It facilitates access to the most advanced knowledge and technologies worldwide. The academic debate on networking regards a one-sided orientation on the local dimension of networking as risky due to possible lock-in effects. The empirical findings for 93 business networks existing in the regions of Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Halle, which are located in the southern part of East Germany, reveal a great proportion of network members concentrated locally: On average, this is the case with more than 50% of the network members. 10% of members are located in the other three city regions mentioned. More than one third of firms are located outside, in other German regions, of which around the half in the states of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. A minority of 2% is located abroad. However, for the transfer of externally existing knowledge other network members may be relevant, too. To illustrate: More than four fifths of the networks under investigation include public research units (universities etc.) which usually play an important role when it comes to an inter-regional and international knowledge transfer.
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Should We Trust in Leading Indicators? Evidence from the Recent Recession
Katja Drechsel, Rolf Scheufele
Abstract
The paper analyzes leading indicators for GDP and industrial production in Germany. We focus on the performance of single and pooled leading indicators during the pre-crisis and crisis period using various weighting schemes. Pairwise and joint significant tests are used to evaluate single indicator as well as forecast combination methods. In addition, we use an end-of-sample instability test to investigate the stability of forecasting models during the recent financial crisis. We find in general that only a small number of single indicator models were performing well before the crisis. Pooling can substantially increase the reliability of leading indicator forecasts. During the crisis the relative performance of many leading indicator models increased. At short horizons, survey indicators perform best, while at longer horizons financial indicators, such as term spreads and risk spreads, improve relative to the benchmark.
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Old Age Poverty – Causes and a Projection for 2023
Ingmar Kumpmann, Michael Gühne, Herbert S. Buscher
Abstract
Several factors bring about a rise in old age poverty in Germany, especially in East Germany. Using data from the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP) we examine causes and extent of old age poverty in Germany. We begin our inquiry with a cross section regression in order to determine the impact of several factors on retirement incomes in Germany. In the second step we perform an income projection of today’s 50 to 55 year-old people for the year 2023. In doing so, we take into account different sources of income, including several forms of capital income and the calculated rent of owner-occupied houses and flats. We find a significant rise in old age poverty especially in East Germany as a consequence of rising unemployment after the German unification.
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Innovation and Skills from a Sectoral Perspective: A Linked Employer-Employee Analysis
Lutz Schneider, Jutta Günther, Bianca Brandenburg
Economics of Innovation and New Technology,
2010
Abstract
Science and engineering skills as well as management and leadership skills are often referred to as sources of innovative activities within companies. Broken down into sectoral innovation patterns, this article examines the role of formal education, actual occupation and work experience in the innovation performance in manufacturing firms within a probit model. It uses unique micro data for Germany (LIAB) that contain information about corporate innovation activities and the qualification of employees in terms of formal education, actual professional status and work experience. We find clear differences in the human capital endowment between sectors according to the Pavitt classification. Sectors with a high share of highly skilled employees engage in above average product innovation (specialized suppliers and science-based industries). However, according to our estimation results, across as well as within these sectors a large share of highly skilled employees does not substantially increase the probability of a firm being innovative.
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Industry Concentration and Regional Innovative Performance – Empirical Evidence for Eastern Germany
Christoph Hornych, Michael Schwartz
Post-Communist Economies,
2009
Abstract
Regarding technological innovativeness, the transformed economy of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) clearly lags behind the western part of the country. To face this weakness a broad mixture of policy measures was carried out in recent years. Particular attention is drawn to the development of industry concentrations and economic ‘clusters’. However, little is known about the effectiveness of these policy measures regarding how industry concentrations in fact promote innovative performance in Eastern Germany. The present study tries to fill this gap by analysing the relationship between industry concentration in Eastern Germany and regional innovative performance. Our empirical analysis is based upon the number of patent applications of 22 manufacturing industries in 22 Eastern German planning regions. The estimated regression models indicate an inverted-U relationship between the degree of industry concentration and innovative performance. An exceedingly high degree of industry concentration in one region hampers regional innovative output. We discuss policy implications of our findings and give recommendations for future refinement of ‘cluster’-supporting policy schemes in Eastern Germany.
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Die wirtschaftliche Transformation in den neuen Ländern: Mehr als eine rein ökonomische Aufgabe
Ulrich Blum
Die Politische Meinung,
2009
Abstract
Often the rise from the ruins of socialism is only considered from an economic perspective. In fact we know that economic success relates to considerable extent to its cultural prerequisites. The article analyzes the present development of the New Lander within the perspective of pre-economic cultural imprints of East Germany. It shows for East Germany that beside the specific mixture of protestant work ethic and status seeking, which generated own “living worlds”, the different development of society, especially the middleclass basis and entrepreneurship are of special importance. In addition, the lost interest in unification by West Germany is an important factor that explains why West Germans had little interest to explain their own economic and social system. These conditions put economic performance in a critical perspective.
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Deutsche Einheit – ein wirtschaftlicher Gewinn
Ulrich Blum
MUT – Zeitschrift für Kultur,
2009
Abstract
20 years after the fall of the wall the interest in the evaluation of the economic development of Germany after unification has increased. The article shows that from a Western German perspective, unification generated large gains because in an expending fail of economic development highly qualified personal from East Germany could be attracted and triggered growth in the West. This also generated a modernization of industry. The perspective on the Eastern side is more mixed. After a first transitory face, an ultra-modern industry has emerged, but gaps in the headquarter functions still exist. They can only be closed within a context of a new technology cycle. From the perspective of unified Germany, the high transfers of 1.3 trillion Euros in the last 20 years, dominantly used for stabilizing social security systems in the East, could mostly be faced out of unification-related additional economic performance in West Germany.
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Warum exportiert der Osten so wenig? Eine empirische Analyse der Exportaktivitäten deutscher Bundesländer
Götz Zeddies
AStA - Wirtschafts- und Sozialstatistisches Archiv,
No. 4,
2009
Abstract
In the aftermath of re-unification, East German exports declined around 70% due to the breakdown of COMECON trade. Although since the mid-1990s export growth rates of the New Federal States were higher than those of their West German counterparts, export performance of East German States measured by the share of exports in GDP is still comparatively poor. Whereas for a long time the low export performance of East German producers was ascribed to competitive disadvantages, in the meantime structural deficits on the micro and/or macro level are often considered as the main reason. Using bilateral trade data of German Federal States, the present paper shows on the basis of an orthodox gravity model of trade that East German exports are explicitly lower than predicted by the model. But if the gravity model is augmented by additional variables representing structural differences between Federal States, the latter explain almost entirely the lower export performance of Eastern Germany. Thus, especially the smaller firm sizes and the lower shares of manufacturing industries in gross value added are identified as important explanatory factors of the comparatively weak export performance of the New German States.
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