Comprehensive Patent Data of the German Democratic Republic 1949–1990

The German Democratic Republic (GDR) was the most developed economy under state socialism. After World War II, this system had been introduced in Eastern Central Europe (ECE) under Soviet rule, and it collapsed throughout the region in 1989–90. It had not fulfilled the high expectations concerning development and modernization. In the twentieth century, modernization was pursued along two roads, the liberal and the collectivist. What prevented the latter from succeeding?Prominent features of the system stood in the way of typical modernization trends, such as the organizational, functional, and international division of labor. Extensive unbalanced growth (industrialization)—imperative for the Soviet Union in its early years—was less urgent for the higher developed societies of ECE. They would have needed continuous structural change, specialization, and innovation to keep up with the West. But they were unable to rid themselves from the fetters of the Soviet system.The lack of innovation may be seen as major deficiency of the state socialist system. Traditionally, East German science and engineering enjoyed a high reputation and were further promoted in the socialist period. The problem was to get new products and processes adopted to production due to bureaucratic red tape in planning, a monopolistic industry structure, and low risk-taking of the firm managers. The entrepreneurial habitus lay dormant under the cover of socialism. After the system collapse, it had to be resuscitated in the transition period.

Development and Modernization Under Socialism and After: An Introduction

Günther,

Jajeśniak-Quast,

Ludwig

et al. 2023

The Influence of Technical Progress on Economic Growth in the GDR

Ludwig,

Hipp,

Medase

2023

The modernization of the economy played a key role in the rhetoric and politics of the German Democratic Republic’s (GDR’s) ruling socialist party and state leadership. However, empirical evidence on its contribution to economic growth is lacking. We analyze the impact of technical progress, based on staff qualifications, on productivity in the different economic sectors of the GDR between 1960 and 1989. We distinguish between academic, skilled, and other workers in our estimations and attach significant importance to qualifications as one of the fundamental drivers of sectoral productivity. Our regression results show productivity-enhancing effects of the number of academic and skilled workers, while the effects of the academic workers are much larger and longer-termed across our specifications. This quantitative analysis adds to the debate on the determinants of and obstacles to growth in the GDR.

Historical Legacies of Regional Innovation Activity: The Case of East and West Germany

Fritsch,

Greve,

Wyrwich

2023

We investigate how 40 years of a communist regime in East Germany and the subsequent German unification affected innovation activities. The empirical evidence suggests that the benefits of integrating the two innovation systems were much greater in the West than in the East, which has resulted in an increasing gap in innovation activities between the two regions. Innovation activity in East Germany was highly concentrated in a few hot spots that have a tradition of innovation reaching back to the time before the Second World War (WWII). The innovation activities that we observe in Germany today are strongly shaped not only by separation into a socialist and a capitalist part after WWII but also by the shock transformation over the course of rapid reunification, which has had lasting effects.