This project focuses on the progress achieved since German unification and not on the differences between east and west that still exist. In the study two different economic orders confront each other: the centrally administered economy of the former GDR and the subsequent market-oriented economy. The study provides a comparison of the economic situation in eastern Germany in 2008 with the initial position of the GDR in 1989.
The typical monetary measurements used for economic comparisons can only be used to a limited extent because of the currency reform of 1990 and the different methods of compiling statistics. For this reason the study relies primarily on measurements from the "real economy". To some extent recourse must be taken to data for the phase immediatly after reunification. Preliminary results underscore the great importance of market economy ordering principles for the succes of the project "Reconstruction in the East". The study also examine the contribution of policy-makers, who set up the framework conditions for economic development, for the economic successes in the new federal states in eastern Germany.
Statistical yearbooks of the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany; National Accounts of the German federal states, labour market statistics of the Federal Labour Agency, etc.
With German unification and the introduction of the market economy, people in eastern Germany have not only regained their freeedom, which they were deprived of for years, but also their material living conditions improved enormously in comparison to 1989. To demonstrate this is the purpose of this study. To do this a number of indicators have been chosen that allow for a description of living conditions in the GDR and in eastern Germany today, which clearly show the progress that has been made to date. In an overall view of the positive and negative aspects of economic and social developments since 1989, the progress clearly domintates so that German unification, depite all the problems that still exist, must be seen as a success.
Ragnitz, Joachim, Beate Schirwitz und Simone Scharfe, Bestandsaufnahme der wirtschaftlichen Fortschritte im Osten Deutschlands 1989-2008, ifo Dresden Studien 51, ifo Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Dresden, 2009. Download (Study version) (PDF, 611 KB, in German)
