The term “German model” was coined to denote the specific institutional conditions of the German economy. For several decades Germany has served as a model case for international comparisons describing a model country with good job quality, internal flexibility and high innovative capabilities. However, the reunification of Germany in the 1990s changed this dramatically. First, the reunification is seen as a key driver for the transformation of the traditional German model. Second, with the new federal states in Eastern Germany new employees and firms became part of the German economy. This questions the traditional assumptions about a general German model. Also, scholars have highlighted that firms in Eastern Germany follow a pattern that is different from their Western German counterparts.
In this paper Dr. Stefan Kirchnewr will investigate the differences between Eastern and Western Germany. He will focus on differences in key aspects of job quality, flexibility and innovation performance in the two regions.
Dr. Stefan Kirchner is Post-Doc researcher at the institute for Socio-Economics, University of Hamburg. His research focuses on institutional conditions for job quality and firm strategies in temporal and international comparison.
