Is Regulatory Convergence Efficient? CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 02.3, May 1992

One of the important themes in the new institutionalism is the convergence of market regulations in a world with three powerful clusters of countries (Western Europe, North America, and East Asia) on a small number of regimes, like disorganized capitalism, free market capitalism, and coordinated market capitalism. This paper examines the political-economic theory of regulatory convergence. It reconstructs and compares three welfarist approaches: the optimal regulatory regime (Tinbergen), the rule of constitutional law (Buchanan), and regulatory rivalry (Hayek). The paper concludes that most plausible results of convergence theory are completely opposite to the expressed political intentions of the theorists. Tinbergen's theory predicts neoliberalism, not social democracy. The theories of Buchanan and Hayek predict respectively a consensual or spontaneous formation of corporatist regulations, not the return of classical constitutionalism or liberalism. The paper summons new institutionalists to repair the weak scientific elements of convergence theory and to make a distinction between the ideological origins of this theory and its unintended ideological consequences.

Capitalism without Capitalists? A Bottom-Up View of Industrial Transformation in East Germany. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 00.1, 1999

Research on the industrial transition in East Germany and its outcomes has long focused on the strategy of the Treuhand­ anstalt (IHA). According to institutionalists, David Stark and Lazlo Brust!: (1998), the powerful position of the German privatization agency was not only a result of German unification but also a function of a pathway rooted in the institutional peculiarities of the East German economy before 1989. This paper shows that neither a simple top-down perspective nor the pathway approach, as Stark and Brust!: suggested, are adequate for explaining the internal dynamic of enterprise transformation as well as the outcomes of this process. First of all, the dissolution of the former organizational structures and hierarchies was less coordinated by the 1HA than is often assumed. Often Kombinates fell apart more quickly from below than they could be dismantled from above since enterprises or their units chose the exit­ option and had good reasons to do so. Secondly, although the privatization by the 1HA resulted in the clear dominance of Western investors, the new ownership structure of East German industry as a whole could be characterized as a "capitalism without (East German) capitalists." In fact, what exists in East Germany is rather a kind of "small business capitalism" (KleinbetriebsknpitalifmllS) in which small-and medium-sized producers dominate the landscape. Finally, there was no single starting point in 1989. Two different industrial orders shaped the industrial history of the East German regions which were not destroyed between 1945-89, but rather transformed into the state socialist production system. It can be shown that these older historical patterns are relevant for transition and their outcomes as well.

European Monetary Union: between the stakeholder and the stockholder models of capitalism. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 01.3, 2001

From the mid-1980s on a new attitude towards self-determination appeared in Western European integration. With the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 and, later, with theAmsterdam Treaty of 1997 the member countries of the European Community manifested their determination to be active players in the new international order. Accepting and instituting the single market and monetary union constituted, however, a challenge of compatibility between the traditional model of welfare European capitalism and the impositions coming from globalization under the neo-liberal model of Anglo-Saxon capitalism. This issue is examined here under two perspectives. The first reviews the implications which globalization has had on the European model of capitalism and the second the complications for monetary management as Europe moves from a nationally regulated to a union regulated financial structure.

The role of Central Europe in the German economy. The political consequences. OSW Report June 2016

Recent publications allow us to conclude that the economic relations between Germany and Central Europe have come to the ‘end of history’, and nothing new will happen. However, a deeper analysis of these relationships reveals interesting new trends. Since joining the European Union the states of Central Europe have not settled for maintaining the average level of economic development, but have continued to narrow the distance between them and Western Europe, something which the global financial crisis did not prevent. Their improved economic situation also affected their relations with Germany. The latest results from the Visegrád Group states show them to be Germany’s most important trading partner, and their balance of trade in goods is in a state of equilibrium, while many euro area countries have recorded high trade deficits with Germany. The aim of this report is to display the trends in trade and investment between Germany and Central Europe, based on the example of the Visegrád Group. The author will also attempt to answer the question of whether the advancing economic cooperation between Germany and the V4 countries will lead to the further modernisation of those countries’ economies, or whether it will run the risk of leaving them in the ‘middle income trap’.