Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wpx84 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-22T21:19:06.789Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Human Capital, Job Tasks and Technology in East Germany After Reunification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Alexandra Spitz-Oener
Alexandra Spitz-Oener*
Affiliation:
Department of Business and Economics, Humboldt-University Berlin, CASE and IZA
*
E-mail: alexandra.spitz-oener@wiwi.hu-berlin.de
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

At the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, employees in East Germany were at least as well educated as employees in West Germany in terms of formal educational qualifications. However, it is unclear to what extent the skills and knowledge acquired through the East German education system, and through employment in a socialist labour market, are transferable to the new market-based economy. This study aims to shed light on this issue by giving a comprehensive description of the work of those employees who remained employed after the first phase of restructuring (i.e. in 1991) in East Germany, and comparing it with work in West Germany. Overall, the similarity between workplaces in East and West Germany soon after reunicication is striking. In addition, the patterns of task changes between 1991 and 1999 were very similar in both parts of Germany. Neither the level of task inputs in1991 nor the changes in task inputs between 1991 and 1999 were driven by cohort effects, a surprising finding given how differently the age groups were affected by the historical event. The Largest difference between the east and the west exists in terms of workplace computerisation. Although East Germany has caught up rapidly, it was still lagging behind the west in terms of computer use in 1999.

Keywords

East German transitionhuman capitaljob taskstechnological changeJ24O33C13
Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 201 , July 2007 , pp. 97 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akerlof, G.et al. (1991), ‘East Germany in from the cold: the economic aftermath of currency union’, Brookings Papers in Economic Activity, 1, pp. 1–105.10.2307/2534638CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Autor, D.H., Levy, F. and Murnane, R.J. (2003), ‘The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration’, Quarterly journal of Economics, 118(4), pp. 1279–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, S. and Spitz-Oener, A. (2007), ‘Explaining women's success: technological change and the skill content of women's work’, IZA Discussion Paper No. 2803; NBER Working Paper 13116.Google Scholar
Burda, M. (1993), ‘The determinants of East-West German migration - some first results’, European Economic Review, 37, pp. 452–61.10.1016/0014-2921(93)90034-8CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burda, M. and Hunt, J. (2001), ‘From reunification to economic integration: productivity and the labor market in Eastern Germany’, Brookings Papers in Economic Activity, 2, pp. 1–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burda, M. and Schmidt, C. (1997), ‘Getting behind the East-West wage differential: theory and evidence’, in Pohl, R. and Schneider, H. (eds), Wirtschaft im Wandel, Special Issue: Wandeln oder Weichen - Herausforderungen der Wirtschaftlichen Integration fuer Deutschland, no. 3, pp. 170–201.Google Scholar
Collier, I.L. and Siebert, H. (1991), ‘The economic integration of post-wall Germany’, American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 81(2), pp. 196–201.Google Scholar
Franz, W. and Steiner, V. (2000), ‘Wages in the East German transition process - facts and explanations’, German Economic Review, 1(3), pp. 241–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuchs-Schuendeln, N. and Izem, R. (2007), ‘Explaining the low labor productivity in East Germany - a spatial analysis’, mimeo, Harvard University, June.Google Scholar
Hunt, J. (2001), ‘Post-unification wage growth in East Germany’, Review of Economics and Statistics, 83(1), pp. 190–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunt, J. (2002), ‘The transition in East Germany: when is a ten-point fall in the gender wage gap bad news’. Journal of Labor Economics, 20(1), pp. 148–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunt, J. (2006), ‘Staunching emigration from East Germany: age and the determinants of migration’, Journal of the European Economic Association, 4(5), pp. 1014–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klodt, H. (2000), ‘Industrial policy and the East German productivity puzzle’, German Economic Review, 1(3), pp. 315–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krueger, A. and Pischke, J. (1995), ‘A comparative analysis of East and West German labor markets: before and after unification.’, in Freeman, R. and Katz, L. (eds). Differences and Changes in Wage Structures, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, pp. 405–45.Google Scholar
Ragnitz, J. (2001), ‘Produktivitätsrückstand der ostdeutschen Wirtschaft: Eine zusammenfassende Bewertung’, Wirtschaft im Wandel, 7-8/2001, pp. 181–9.Google Scholar
Sinn, H.-W. (2000), ‘Germany's economic unification: an assessment after ten years’, CESifo Working Paper Series No. 247.Google Scholar
Spitz-Oener, A. (2006), ‘Technical change, job tasks, and rising educational demands: looking outside the wage structure’, Journal of Labor Economics, 24(2), pp. 235–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar