German Reform Research Articles

Reprint of: Quantifying the Germany shock: Structural labor-market reforms and spillovers in a currency union

We examine the effects of unilateral structural reforms within a currency union. Focusing on the surge of German competitiveness following the introduction of the Euro, we first provide reduced-form causal evidence supporting the notion that German structural labor-market reforms in the early 2000s led to a crowding-out of manufacturing employment in other Eurozone economies. To assess the impact of this German competitiveness shock, we build a quantitative multi-sector trade model that features downward nominal wage rigidities, endogenous labor supply, unemployment-insurance benefits and international savings. The fixed nominal exchange rate can create binding nominal rigidities in response to a foreign real supply shock – like the one prompted by the German reforms – resulting in significant contraction of manufacturing sectors and increased involuntary unemployment across other Eurozone countries. We consider a number of counterfactual scenarios, such as the impact of German labor-market reforms in the absence of a fixed exchange-rate regime, the role of coordinated reforms within the Eurozone and a higher average inflation rate.

Quantifying the Germany shock: Structural labor-market reforms and spillovers in a currency union

We examine the effects of unilateral structural reforms within a currency union. Focusing on the surge of German competitiveness following the introduction of the Euro, we first provide reduced-form causal evidence supporting the notion that German structural labor-market reforms in the early 2000s led to a crowding-out of manufacturing employment in other Eurozone economies. To assess the impact of this German competitiveness shock, we build a quantitative multi-sector trade model that features downward nominal wage rigidities, endogenous labor supply, unemployment-insurance benefits and international savings. The fixed nominal exchange rate can create binding nominal rigidities in response to a foreign real supply shock – like the one prompted by the German reforms – resulting in significant contraction of manufacturing sectors and increased involuntary unemployment across other Eurozone countries. We consider a number of counterfactual scenarios, such as the impact of German labor-market reforms in the absence of a fixed exchange-rate regime, the role of coordinated reforms within the Eurozone and a higher average inflation rate.

INVESTIGATING JUDGE OR PROSECUTOR?

This is a translation of an article by the German scholar Erich Berndt “Investigating Judge or Prosecutor?” published in 1931. The then version of the German Code of Criminal Procedure provided for two forms (or two stages) of pretrial investigation: inquiry (“Ermittlung”) and preliminary investigation (“Untersuchung”). The prosecutor was in charge of the inquiry, while the preliminary investigation was in the hands of an investigating judge (a figure similar to the Russian judicial investigator). Such a pretrial structure was characteristic of most continental legal systems at that time, but many jurists were critical of it. In Germany, the debate on this topic peaked in the 1920s. By the early 1930s, the opinion that the prosecutor’s inquiry should be the only form of investigation had become predominant. In light of this, E. Berndt’s article is interesting because it does not just express the author’s view of the problem, but summarizes the main arguments pro et contra. Today Germany is considered to be a textbook example of a country that refused a judicial preliminary investigation in favor of a prosecutor’s inquiry. At the same time, the experience of the German reform serves as an important reference point for many legal systems. Since the domestic legislator is also in search of an optimal model of pretrial investigation, familiarity with the German discussion about this may be extremely useful for the Russian reader.

Employment policy for a just transition – the example of Germany

The green transformation and Industry 4.0 are associated with considerable risks for workers in countries with dual labour markets such as Germany. The biggest risks are wage losses due to the involuntary transition into the precarious secondary labour market and insufficient education and training for the new ‘green’ jobs. Institutional reforms are necessary for a ‘just transition’. The ongoing reforms in Germany in education and training and wage setting show that the transition is a critical juncture in which new stakeholder constellations have the opportunity for non-path-dependent changes from a dual to an inclusive employment system with better work. The approaches adopted in recent German reforms are of overarching interest. Featuring the strongest manufacturing base in Europe, Germany is under particularly high pressure to fully embrace the green transformation and digitalisation. The country has learned from other countries and, conversely, can perhaps also help trigger a just transition in other countries.

Critical infrastructure of social and labour market integration: Capacitating the implementation of social service policies to the long-term unemployed in Germany and France?

Active social and employment services are a crucial infrastructure of the welfare state. As these services are designed to help people in need of support to overcome periods of insecurity in their life course, their effective provision has also been seen as an element of the implementation of the social investment (SI) welfare state. However, the transition to the SI state is linked to numerous preconditions. This is especially true with regard to vulnerable people like the long-term unemployed (LTU). The provision of social services that meet the specific needs of this group requires the actors responsible for implementing social and employment policies to have adequate operative capacities. This article compares Germany and France as two European welfare states that – confronted with persistently high long-term unemployment – have taken different reform paths over the last 20 years that partly run counter to their political-administrative systemic conditions and governance traditions to meet this challenge. Empirically, the article draws on a systematic content analysis of selected policy documents and secondary literature. It is shown that the recent German reform path of combining central steering responsibility with local scope for action can be a way to come closer to a social investment-oriented service policy for the LTU. However, the article also reveals that neither state (yet) has the necessary operative capacities for a shift towards an SI state. Overall, the changes in the understanding of the SI paradigm and the welfare state's constant reluctance to invest in implementation capacity make its sustainable application unlikely.

Autonomous and Between Worlds: Musical Manifestos for Anti-Capitalist Futures in Post-Wall East Berlin

AbstractThe opening of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 provided a spectacular climax for Samuel Huntington's third wave of democracy. It represented the triumph not only of a people over their oppressive regime but also, ultimately, of Western economic liberalism; the post-socialist democracy of German reunification was a singular one with consumerism at its core. In the early 1990s, many East German reform socialists resisted this inevitability, and exploited the temporary political and bureaucratic void that emerged in East Berlin as a space in which to imagine alternative democratic futures from the socialist past. In this article I explore the attempts by two very different East Berlin musical communities to incubate anti-capitalist worlds from the legacies – both official and unofficial – of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). First, I reflect on the autonomous musical worlds that were created by members of the GDR's alternative bands in occupied buildings in Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte. Second, I consider the articulation by the ZwischenWelt-Festival, a reincarnation of the GDR's Festival of Political Song, of a more outward-looking future for East Germany, based on the ideals of international solidarity.

Einweihungszeremonien als Übergangsriten in jüdischer Aufklärung und Reformbewegung. Drei Fallbeispiele

The opening of the Jewish Wilhelm School in Breslau (Wroclaw) in 1791 was celebrated with a large public ceremony, which was attended not only by the newly admitted pupils, their parents and teachers, but also by high state officials and well-known scholars. Similar large-scale and publicly announced celebrations took place in 1810, when the first German Reform synagogue, the so-called Jacobs Temple, was solemnly inaugurated in Seesen. Two years before this event, the Westphalian Consistory of Israelites in Kassel had been opened also with a public celebration. Both institutions now held “confirmations,” which replaced the traditional bar mitzvah. The admission to the Wilhelm School in Breslau and the participation in the Reform services in Seesen and Kassel meant for the Jewish pupils and “confirmands” not only the transition into another phase of life. These entries also marked the transition from traditional Judaism to a Judaism of modernity. Accordingly, these newly created institutions were primarily concerned with forming entirely ‘new humans’. The Breslau School aimed at a balanced perfection of the intellect, emotions and morality of its pupils. Analogously, the worship services and confirmations in Seesen and Kassel were directed toward “thinking, feeling, and acting religiously”. Drawing on the descriptions of the opening ceremonies and the inauguration speeches in Breslau, Kassel and Seesen, the rites of transition, the terminology associated with the transition and the conceptual content of the envisaged new type of education and instruction are outlined.

The French and the German Reforms of Contract Law

Abstract. France and Germany not only have very prominent private law codifications, but are also those countries which have taken the EC Sales Directive 1999 (among other EU developments) as an invitation to engage in an overall reform of their old Codes at the wake of the 21st Century. This invites to a comparison, namely because the one reform occurred when transposing the directive, within two years, the other after almost 1 ½ decades of considerations and discussions.

Plague, Print, and the Reformation: The German Reform of Healing, 1473–1573. Erik A. Heinrichs. The History of Medicine in Context. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018. xii + 248 pp. $155.

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Do Mandatory Disclosure Requirements for Private Firms Increase the Propensity of Going Public?

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the effect of mandatory disclosure requirements for private firms on their decision to go public. Using detailed project‐level data for biopharmaceutical firms, we explore the effects of a legal reform that exogenously required firms to publicly disclose information regarding clinical trials. Exploiting cross‐sectional heterogeneity in firms' exposure to the regulation based on their internal development portfolios, we find that affected firms are significantly more likely to transition to public equity markets following the reform. Moreover, firms that go public because of the increased disclosure requirements subsequently reduce the size of their project portfolios while shifting to safer investments acquired externally. We provide additional evidence for the main hypothesis using a second setting: a 2006 German reform which enhanced the enforcement of mandatory disclosure requirements for private firms. The results suggest that private firms' general information environment and disclosure requirements influence the propensity of going public.

ІДЕЇ ДИТИНОЦЕНТРИЧНОЇ ОСВІТИ В РЕФОРМАТОРСЬКІЙ ПЕДАГОГІЦІ НІМЕЧЧИНИ

Статтю присвячено розгляду німецького педагогічного реформаторського руху кінця ХІХ – початку ХХ ст. Її безпосередньою метою є історико-педагогічний аналіз ідей дитиноцентричної освіти в реформаторській педагогіці Німеччини. У результаті досягнення мети розглянуто передумови виникнення і поширення ідей дитиноцентричної освіти в педагогічній теорії і шкільній практиці Німеччини у вказаний історичний період, висвітлено міркування відомих німецьких педагогів-реформаторів (Ф. Гансберга, Л. Гурліта, Г. Шаррельмана та ін.) щодо навчання і виховання молодого покоління на засадах дитиноцентризму, констатовано їх суголосність із сучасними освітніми тенденціями.

The entangled state: How state-business relations shaped the German corporate tax regime

Contemporary tax research is split into two camps: comparative approaches emphasize continuity and cross-country differences, while the globalization literature stresses similar changes across countries. Counter the continuity thesis, this paper finds that neoliberal dynamics were at play in a case considered largely resilient to such dynamics: German governments implemented a series of corporate tax reforms which radically curbed business taxes and added a short-term and cost-cutting component to investments and corporate finance. While these changes point towards neoliberal change, they were distinct from the trends we see in other economies: crucially, the German reforms did not follow the common trend of reducing taxes for individuals and entailed a particular emphasis on enhancing multinational’s access to international capital – but did not liberate financial incomes from tax in general. Based on archival documents from the Bundestagsarchiv, this paper traces the process of German tax reforms and finds that neoliberal dynamics were at play but received a local (export-oriented) colour through processes specific to the German polity. Because consensual institutions granted power to a specific business coalition, radical change was long blocked. Reforms could only be implemented once the state forged a new coalition. Making sense of the mediation of neoliberal dynamics through state institutions can contribute to a better understanding of the variegated nature of neoliberalism.

Reform und Reformation: Geschichte der deutschen Reformkongregation der Augustinereremiten (1432–1539) by Wolfgang Günter

Reviewed by: Reform und Reformation: Geschichte der deutschen Reformkongregation der Augustinereremiten (1432–1539) by Wolfgang Günter Louis J. Reith Reform und Reformation: Geschichte der deutschen Reformkongregation der Augustinereremiten (1432–1539). By Wolfgang Günter. Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2018. 605 pp. Wolfgang Günter, a professor of early modern European history at Freiburg University, deserves our gratitude for his labor of love, a monograph that traces the origins of the unified Augustinian Order in Europe in 1256, follows its century-long period of decline, and documents the birth of a German Reform Congregation centered in Saxony. Beginning with a small group of reform-minded German Augustinians, the Congregation (network of Augustinian friaries) began to reform their monasteries and restore monastic discipline even before the Council of Basel in 1432 gave formal papal approval for monastic reforms. Reformation historians will note that from 1506 the Congregation's most prominent member was Martin Luther, who left the Order in 1525 and subsequently married. The Congregation itself survived until the death of the fiercely Catholic Duke George of Ducal Saxony in 1539. His Lutheran successor then shuttered the monasteries and introduced the Lutheran Reformation that sounded the death knell for the Reform Congregation. The author visited 28 archives for manuscript evidence, and he includes a 97-page appendix containing 44 separate documents in German, French, and Latin. Through his careful archival research, we observe the friars struggle to enact monastic reforms through several layers of ecclesiastical superiors, church councils, and popes, not to forget frequent interventions by territorial princes. Unexpected gaps in the documentation reveal just how difficult it was for the author to undertake his research. An introductory chapter devoted [End Page 191] to primary sources speaks about a document called the "Nuremberg Anonymous" (covering the Congregation's history from 1458 to 1467) which Günter discovered in the Nuremberg city library. Unfortunately, there are gaps in the text, attributed to an anonymous nineteenth-century "parchment thief," a librarian who tore out entire sections of the fragile manuscript (22). Rooting out monastic vices proved to be a Herculean task. Contrary to popular belief, the most virulent vice that resisted reform was not sexuality but inability to keep the Augustinian vow of poverty. Brothers who possessed inheritances, fields, vineyards, sheep, cattle, or goats were using the profits for their own needs. Still others lived outside the monastery, served prelates or princes, or pursued academic careers at universities (with the encouragement of their superiors). Another popular belief argues that it was the Protestant Reformation that first enabled territorial princes (the Landesherren) to exercise authority over religious institutions. But Günter provides abundant evidence that princely authority over the monasteries had begun already in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and "a majority of the most powerful princes had already achieved this goal in the course of the fifteenth century, or else the Reformation would not have been possible" (81). A major portion of the book is devoted to the careers of two exceptional vicar-generals of the German Reform Congregation, Andreas Proles (1429–1503) and Johann von Staupitz (1460–1524). Proles was renowned as a reformer, but also as an authoritarian reformer who did not hesitate to involve the local prince in the reforming process. Staupitz, who was descended from an ancient Saxon family of Czech origin (ze Stupic), was Proles' polar opposite. When Elector Frederick the Wise opened his new university in 1502, he invited Staupitz and a dozen of his Tübingen University colleagues to anchor Wittenberg's nascent faculty. In 1503, Staupitz succeeded Proles as vicar-general of the German Reform Congregation. He promoted biblical studies and sent Augustinian friars from his Wittenberg monastery to study at the local university. One of these student friars was none other than Martin Luther, whom [End Page 192] Staupitz soon enlisted to accompany him on visitation trips to monasteries in need of reform. When Luther first published his 95 Theses, it was Staupitz who rose to defend him, followed by Elector Frederick the Wise. But Staupitz feared that Luther was going too far in his condemnation of papal abuses, and his own abiding loyalty to the papacy led him to break with Luther's...

Identifying Causal Channels of Policy Reforms with Multiple Treatments and Different Types of Selection

Abstract We study the identification of channels of policy reforms with multiple treatments and different types of selection for each treatment. We disentangle reform effects into policy effects, selection effects, and time effects under the assumption of conditional independence, common trends, and an additional exclusion restriction on the non-treated. Furthermore, we show the identification of direct- and indirect policy effects after imposing additional sequential conditional independence assumptions on mediating variables. We illustrate the approach using the German reform of the allocation system of vocational training for unemployed persons. The reform changed the allocation of training from a mandatory system to a voluntary voucher system. Simultaneously, the selection criteria for participants changed, and the reform altered the composition of course types. We consider the course composition as a mediator of the policy reform. We show that the empirical evidence from previous studies reverses when considering the course composition. This has important implications for policy conclusions.

Have Macron’s Recent Labour Reforms Been as Impactful as Past German Reforms?

Structural reforms can sometimes take many years for the effects to be visible in economic data: but one area where impacts can manifest more swiftly is the labour market. In particular, Germany’s experience in the mid-2000s is often cited as a clear example of how macroeconomic dynamics can shift relatively swiftly if the reforms are effective. More recently, France has seen a number of structural reforms, driven by President Macron’s desire to revitalize the French economy after his 2016 election. This paper examines the macroeconomic impact of recent French labour market reforms, comparing and contrasting this impact against the German experience in the 2000s. If idiosyncratic policy changes were a significant driver of labour market dynamics, then empirical outcomes should be different for those countries experiencing policy changes, relative to their peers. Using a variety of different statistical techniques, we find that – while there is clear evidence of the German labour market outperforming its peers when the Hartz reforms were enacted – there is no sign of the French labour market doing so under Macron’s presidency.

Reform or Consensus? Choral Synagogues in the Russian Empire

Many scholars view the choral synagogues in the Russian Empire as Reform synagogues, influenced by the German Reform movement. This article analyzes the features characteristic of Reform synagogues in central and Western Europe, and demonstrates that only a small number of these features were implemented in the choral synagogues of Russia. The article describes the history, architecture, and reception of choral synagogues in different geographical areas of the Russian Empire, from the first maskilic synagogues of the 1820s–1840s to the revolution of 1917. The majority of changes, this article argues, introduced in choral synagogues were of an aesthetic nature. The changes concerned decorum, not the religious meaning or essence of the prayer service. The initial wave of choral synagogues were established by maskilim, and modernized Jews became a catalyst for the adoption of the choral rite by other groups. Eventually, the choral synagogue became the “sectorial” synagogue of the modernized elite. It did not have special religious significance, but it did offer social prestige and architectural prominence.

Is the turtle still plodding along? Public management reform in Germany

ABSTRACT Public management reforms in Germany have long been characterized by slow-moving incrementalism and maintenance of its administrative system’s central characteristics. This article reviews recent developments in administrative reforms against the background of the traditional German reform style. More ambitious reform efforts in the field of digitalization raise conceptual puzzles related to the conditions under which incrementalism can generate substantive change – and at what point incremental reforms give way to more rapid patterns of change. The article also discusses the implications of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis on public management reforms.

Przedszkola w debacie polityczno-oświatowej Niemiec. W stronę edukacji, opieki i wychowania

Contemporary pre-school institutions in Germany have ceased to be perceived solely as providers of care. Significant importance has been assigned to education and upbringing as equivalent categories. The change in approach is not only apparent in their organisation and functioning, but also in state policies, which clearly emphasise the importance of early childhood. The aim of the article is to analyse the political-pedagogical debate that has been in progress since 2005, as well as to scrutinise the adopted arguments and their consequences in the form of the ever changing early school education and care in Germany. The analysis of conditions that have contributed to bestowing preschools with such significance, not only in the process of early childhood development, but also in the process of more broadly understood social development, has also been recognised as equally important, as a result of which preschool institutions have gained importance in the area of political investment that is equal to that granted to schools. The analysis of educational reports and formal-legal guidelines on both federal and state levels is meant to illustrate the range of the introduced changes and the specifics of the German reform, which is perceived as an interlinked network and as cooperation for the sake of children and their families.

Plague, Print, and the Reformation: The German Reform of Healing, 1473–1573. By Erik A. Heinrichs

Plague, Print, and the Reformation: The German Reform of Healing, 1473–1573. By Erik A. Heinrichs

The artistic and social role of public gardens: Béla Rerrich and the renewal of public park design in early twentieth-century Hungary

As in many countries, the renewal of existing urban parks became a central topic in civic and urban design in Hungary at the beginning of the twentieth century. Political issues influenced public open space design and the meaning attributed to it, relating to questions about tradition and modernity and to the artistic and social role of gardens. After the First World War, a new political reality brought about the possibility of creating public parks able to break with the historicist tradition rooted in the English landscape garden and the work of Peter Joseph Lenné and Gustav Meyer. This article explains how English and German reform ideas influenced landscape design thinking in Hungary in the first decades of the twentieth century by discussing the writings, designs and legacy of the architect Béla Rerrich, whose reforms led to a new way of designing public green spaces. Keyword: Public park design; Hungary; Béla Rerrich; urban open space; park reform