IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/5656.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Caring Hand that Cripples: The East German Labour Market after Reunification

Author

Listed:
  • Snower, Dennis
  • Merkl, Christian

Abstract

The East German labor market has hardly made any progress since German reunification, despite massive migration flows and support from the West. We argue that East Germany is in trouble precisely because of the support it has received. This paper explores the phenomenon of 'the caring hand that cripples,' arising from bargaining by proxy, the adoption of the West German welfare system and the associated employment persistence. Even the steady decrease of labour cost (normalized by productivity) since the beginning of the 1990s did not help to kick start the East. We suggest that labor force participants fell into 'traps,' concerning low skills, ageing of the workforce, labour-saving capital and skills, capital underutilization, and unemployment arising from the decline of the tradeable sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Snower, Dennis & Merkl, Christian, 2006. "The Caring Hand that Cripples: The East German Labour Market after Reunification," CEPR Discussion Papers 5656, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5656
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP5656
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David T. Coe & Dennis J. Snower, 1997. "Policy Complementarities: The Case for Fundamental Labor Market Reform," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 44(1), pages 1-35, March.
    2. Klodt Henning, 2000. "Industrial Policy and the East German Productivity Puzzle," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 1(3), pages 315-333, August.
    3. Henning Klodt, 2000. "Industrial Policy and the East German Productivity Puzzle," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 1(3), pages 315-333, August.
    4. Yu-Fu Chen & Michael Funke, 2003. "Labour Demand in Germany: An Assessment of Non- Wage Labour Costs," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 154, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    5. Michael C. Burda & Jennifer Hunt, 2001. "From Reunification to Economic Integration: Productivity and the Labor Market in Eastern Germany," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 32(2), pages 1-92.
    6. Snower, Dennis J. & Merkl, Christian, 2006. "The caring hand that cripples: The East German labor market after reunification (detailed version)," Kiel Working Papers 1263, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    7. repec:bla:reviec:v:10:y:2002:i:1:p:113-28 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Dennis J. Snower & Christian Merkl, 2006. "The Caring Hand that Cripples: The East German Labor Market after Reunification," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 375-382, May.
    9. Ralf A. Wilke, 2005. "New Extimates of the Duration and Risk of Unemployment for West-Germany," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 125(2), pages 207-237.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Snower, Dennis J. & Merkl, Christian, 2006. "The caring hand that cripples: The East German labor market after reunification (detailed version)," Kiel Working Papers 1263, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Brown, Alessio J.G. & Merkl, Christian & Snower, Dennis J., 2011. "Comparing the effectiveness of employment subsidies," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 168-179, April.
    3. Fuchs-Schündeln, Nicola & Izem, Rima, 2012. "Explaining the low labor productivity in East Germany – A spatial analysis," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-21.
    4. Izem, Rima & Fuchs-Schündeln, Nicola, 2007. "Explaining the low labor productivity in East Germany: a spatial analysis," Kiel Working Papers 1307, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    5. Lechthaler, Wolfgang & Merkl, Christian & Snower, Dennis J., 2010. "Monetary persistence and the labor market: A new perspective," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 968-983, May.
    6. repec:zbw:ifwkwp:1309 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Merkl, Christian & Snower, Dennis J., 2008. "Escaping the unemployment trap: The case of East Germany," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 542-556, December.
    8. Brown, Alessio J. G. & Snower, Dennis J., 2009. "Incentives and complementarities of flexicurity," Kiel Working Papers 1526, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Smolny, Werner, 2010. "Dynamic adjustment and long-run equilibria: Panel data estimates for the East German states," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1223-1229, September.
    10. Smolny Werner, 2012. "Cyclical Adjustment, Capital-labor Substitution and Total Factor Productivity Convergence – East Germany After Unification," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 232(4), pages 445-459, August.
    11. Mertens, Matthias & Mueller, Steffen, 2022. "The East-West German gap in revenue productivity:Just a tale of output prices?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 815-831.
    12. Ufuk Akcigit & Harun Alp & André Diegmann & Nicolas Serrano-Velarde, 2023. "Committing to Grow: Privatizations and Firm Dynamics in East Germany," International Finance Discussion Papers 1382, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    13. Burda, Michael C., 2006. "What kind of shock was it? Regional integration and structural change in Germany after unification," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2006-087, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    14. Robert Orlowski & Regina T. Riphahn, 2008. "The East German Wage Structure after Transition," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 148, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    15. Merkl, Christian & Schmitz, Tom, 2011. "Macroeconomic volatilities and the labor market: First results from the euro experiment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 44-60, March.
    16. W. Smolny & M. Kirbach, 2011. "Wage differentials between East and West Germany: are they related to the location or to the people?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(9), pages 873-879.
    17. Kuehn, Zoe, 2014. "The rise or the fall of the wall? Determinants of low entrepreneurship in East Germany," Working Papers in Economic Theory 2014/03, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain), Department of Economic Analysis (Economic Theory and Economic History).
    18. Blien Uwe & Möller Joachim & Hong Van Phan thi & Brunow Stephan, 2016. "Long-Lasting Labour Market Consequences of German Unification," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 236(2), pages 181-216, March.
    19. Burda, Michael C., 2008. "What kind of shock was it? Regional integration and structural change in Germany after unification," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 557-567, December.
    20. Böhm, Sebastian, 2015. "Regional economic integration and factor mobility in unified Germany," FSES Working Papers 463, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Freiburg/Fribourg Switzerland.
    21. Ong, Qiyan & Theseira, Walter, 2016. "Does choosing jobs based on income risk lead to higher job satisfaction in the long run? Evidence from the natural experiment of German reunification," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 95-108.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    German unification; Labour markets; Labour market traps;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • P2 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5656. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.