Standortwettbewerb der Bundesländer

Abstract

Germany`s disappointing economic performance causes political upsets. If the next government intents to be more successfull than the current one, fundamental reforms are to be enforced. Germany`s inadequate federal system is a major growth obstacle. The country forgoes the benefits of institutional competition, that would result in a higher level of efficiency. As mobility within the federal republic is higher than between countries, competition among the German Länder could be more challenging than between Germany and its foreign trade partners. Thus, vivid competition on the level of the Länder would strengthen the incentives to perform an effective policy and wipe out inefficiencies, for example those being due to the political process. Though the most important political issues are shaped on the federal level, some political scope for the Länder governments remains. This holds true especially as far as the administration rather than the legislative is concerned.The study "Die Bundesländer im Standortwettbewerb" evaluates the political success of the German Länder. It reveals, that the different performance of the Länder is also due to different Länder policies. Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg are the two most successful Flächenländer (non-city states), and they are the two Länder with the most consequent policies as well. To enhence the beneficial effects of institutional competition, a comprehensive reform has to widen the political scope of the Länder. Competences are to be disentengled. With the concept of the FOCJ (functional, overlapping, competing jurisdictions), Frey an Eichenberger propose to decentralize competences radically and enhence institutional competition to a maximum level.

A multi-level analysis of innovation diffusion: The case of solar photovoltaic systems in Germany and the disillusion of grid parity

“…2) The second step assesses the lead market attributes at sub-national level. In order to tackle this, several indicators, which were identified in the previous step, were then retrieved from Federal and Regional Statistical Offices of Germany (SABL, 2013;SLBW, 2013) and the other studies (Berthold et al, 2009;Diekmann et al, 2012;Drücke, 2004;Kost et al, 2013). Each indicator is categorized according to the five attributes of the lead market model and mapped spatially via QGIS 2.0.1 Software, which is an open source geographic information systems (GIS) program that provides spatial data analysis.…”