Mod-Block DDR

25 January 2024
Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich presented their work on the impact of trust and quality of government on innovation in Europe at the DFG network meeting "The Dynamics of Innovation Systems: Perspectives, Influences and Operationalization" at FSU Jena (for more information, see https://www.uni-bremen.de/en/dfg-network-the-dynamics-of-innovation-systems/news/4-dfg-netzwerktreffen-an-der-fsu-jenaExternal link)

15 January 2024
Michael Fritsch participated in the 7th Geography of Innovation Conference (GeoInno) in Manchester from 10-12 January 2024. He participated in the presentation of the book Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Cities and Regions: Emergence, Evolution, and Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press (edited by Robert Huggins, Fumi Kitagawa, Daniel Prokop, Christina Theodoraki and Piers Thompson) where he presented the chapter with Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich “The Deep Historical Roots of Industrial Culture and Regional Entrepreneurship — A case study of two regions”. Moreover, he presented new work (with Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich) on the development of regional patenting activity in Germany in the period 1877 to 2020.

2 January 2024
New publication: Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich: The Entrepreneurial League Table of German Regions 1895 and 2019. Jena Economic Research Papers #2024-001 Friedrich Schiller University Jena https://oweb.b67.uni-jena.de/Papers/jerp2023/wp_2024_001.pdfExternal link

Based on rankings (“league tables”) for the two years, we identify those regions where the relative level of self-employment significantly increased (‘leapfroggers’), and those where the level of self-employment as compared to other regions deteriorated (‘plungers’). Germany is a particularly interesting case due to the turbulent history of the country over the twentieth century including two lost World Wars, occupation by foreign armies, forty years of division into a capitalist and a socialist state, as well as reunification and shock transformation of the eastern part to a market economy. Although there is some persistence of regional self-employment despite all the disruptive changes, we also find and discuss considerable changes in regional levels of entrepreneurial activity. The article will be forthcoming in a book edited by Jay Mitra and George Saridakis honouring professor David Storey who passed away in July 2023.

20 December 2023
Marcus Dejardin, Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve, and Korneliusz Pylak are organising Special Sessions on "Fostering Sustainable Regional Development: The Central Role of Entrepreneurship and Policy" at the 2024 ERSA Congress on Terceira (Azores) https://ersa.eventsair.com/ersa2024/External link

27 November 2023
The paper "On the Roman Origins of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Germany" by Michael Fritsch, Martin Obschonka, Fabian Wahl, and Michael Wyrwich has just been published online in Regional Studies. The article is open access and is available under https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2023.2276341External link

The paper investigates whether the development of regional disparities in entrepreneurship and innovation in Germany can be traced back to Roman rule 2000 years ago. There is a lasting positive Roman effect on the level and quality of entrepreneurship and innovation. This effect might be due to the imprint of local hard factors, such as interregional social and economic exchange, particularly emerging from the integration into the Roman Empire. This effect remains robust when other significant historical developments are taken into account.

20 November 2023
Michael Wyrwich presented his research on the link between entrepreneurship and democracy at the research Seminar at University of Opole, Poland.

9 November 2023
Michael Wyrwich presented his research on the role of universities and entrepreneurship for regional structural change and participated as a panelist at the BBSR Workshop, “Structural Change in Coal-Mining areas” at the BTU Cottbus (for more information, see https://www.b-tu.de/transfer/lernen-sie-uns-kennen/an-der-btu/strukturwandeltagungExternal link)

20 October 2023
New Working Paper: Michael Fritsch, Alina Sorgner and Michael Wyrwich “Are Senior Entrepreneurs Happier than Who? The Role of Income and Health.” Jena Economic Research Papers #2023-016, Friedrich Schiller University Jena https://ideas.repec.org/p/jrp/jrpwrp/2023-016.htmlExternal link

1 October 2023
New publication: Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve, and Michael Wyrwich: "Historical Legacies of Regional Innovation Activity – The Case of East (and West) Germany", in Jutta Guenther, Dagmara Jajeniak-Quast, Udo Ludwig and Hans-Jürgen Wagener (eds.): Roadblocks to the Socialist Modernisation Path and Transition—Evidence from East Germany and Poland, London 2024: Palgrave Macmillan. The contributions to the book summarize main results of the joint research project Modernisierungsblockaden in Wirtschaft und Wissenschaft der DDR (Obstacles to Modernization in the Economy and Science of the GDR) that was financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The book is open access and can be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37050-2External link

1 October 2023
Ann-Marie Sommerfeld joined the project team of Mod-Block DDR - The legacy of the GDR innovation system as a Postdoctoral researcher for the upcoming 2 years.

15 August 2023
The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research is financing our project on The Legacy of the GDR Innovation System - Intra-German Comparison and Comparison with Neighbouring Countries in East-Central Europe (Modernisierungsblockaden in Wirtschafts und Wissenschaft der DDR. Entstehung und Folgen im innerdeutschen Vergleich und im Vergleich mit Nachbarländern in Ostmitteleuropa) for another two years beginning October 1, 2023. A key topic for the new project stage is a comparison of innovation and patenting in East Germany with two other post-socialist countries, the Czech Republic and Poland.

24 July 2023
In a new study published by the OECD, Jonathan Potter, Haifeng Qian, Michael Fritsch, David Storey, and Georgios Fotopoulos investigate the dynamics of regional entrepreneurship in the US over a period of about a century and compare the results with Germany and England & Wales. A main finding is that the stickiness (persistence) of regional entrepreneurship levels in the US is comparable to what was found in a number of European countries. The study identifies the types of regions that improve markedly (“leapfroggers”) or decline sharply (“plungers”) in their rank positions and the reasons for these changes. The paper draws out policy implications on regional levelling-up of entrepreneurship activity and sets out an agenda for further research. See https://doi.org/10.1787/bc031b11-en External link

10 July 2023
In a new paper, Michael Wyrwich and Michael Fritsch explore three important mechanisms behind the transmission of an entrepreneurial culture over a long period of time. The first mechanism is the effects of role models at the household level. The authors hypothesize that the larger the households of self-employed, the greater the opportunities for role model effects such as an intergenerational transfer of entrepreneurial values and attitudes, and hence the higher the regional start-up rate in later periods. The second mechanism is the economic success of regional entrepreneurs for role-model effects. The third mechanism is the stimulating effect of economically successful entrepreneurs on a collective memory of historical entrepreneurship that stimulates self-employment in later periods. The analysis of entrepreneurship in German regions over a period of more than 90 years provides support for the significance of all three transfer channels.

Wyrwich, M. and M. Fritsch: How Does Regional Entrepreneurship Transfer over Time? The Role of Household Size and Economic Success Jena Economic Research Papers #2023-006, Friedrich Schiller University Jena. https://ideas.repec.org/p/jrp/jrpwrp/2023-006.htmlExternal link

1 July 2023
Michael Wyrwich joins as knowledge partner the Interreg Europe project SIRM - Socio-economic Integration of Refugees and Migrants (for more information, see https://www.interregeurope.eu/sirmExternal link)

1 July 2023
Michael Wyrwich’s research was covered in the Harvard Business Review: The TV you watch when you’re young can make you more entrepreneurial, Harvard Business Review, 07/2023 https://hbr.org/2023/07/the-tv-you-watch-when-youre-young-can-make-you-more-entrepreneurialExternal link

15 June 2023
New publication by Björn Asheim, Michael Fritsch, Høgni K. Hansen and Arne Isaksen „Creativity, knowledge and institutions: A European perspective on Florida’s ‘The Rise of the Creative Class’ 20 years later“ in: Amit Batabyal and Peter Nijkamp (eds.): The Creative Class Revisited: New Analytical Advances. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing 2023, 325–342. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811267659_0011External link
The chapter recaps the key tenets of the creative class theory of economic development and discusses the key issues in the conceptual and analytical debate it has inspired.

13 June 2023
Michael Wyrwich gave a research seminar at University of Bremen, Germany and talked about the impact of socialist legacy on innovation activity in Eastern Germany.

6 June 2023
Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve, and Michael Wyrwich participated in the 3^rd meeting of the research network “The dynamics of innovation systems: Perspectives, influences, and operationalization" on June 1st to 2nd, 2023 in Braunschweig, Germany. Maria Greve presented joint work with Ann Hipp (University of Bremen) about the long-term effect of the large-scale investment of the socialist East German government in the development of microelectronics technology.

1 June 2023
New publication by Viktor Slavtchev and  Michael Wyrwich: “The effects of TV content on entrepreneurship: Evidence from German unification“ in the Journal of Comparative Economics, 2023, Vol. 51, 696-721, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2023.01.008External link

1 June 2023
New publication by Michael Wyrwich and Elisabeth Bublitz in Annals of Regional Science. In the paper “Labor market changes and social inclusiveness across regions: evidence from the rise of the modern office“ (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-023-01225-2External link), we investigate how technological change affects the labor market inclusion of people with physical disabilities.

31 May 2023
In the last couple of months our research received a substantial media coverage in major German outlets such as Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Stuttgarter Zeitung, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (e.g., https://zeitung.faz.net/faz/politik/2023-04-14/4a117b7b1dabeb1c81de309e138a2d65/?GEPC=s5).

23 May 2023
Michael Fritsch attended a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institut für Mittelstandsforschung in Bonn, Germany.

15 May 2023
Michael Wyrwich met a delegation of public officials from different South Korean ministries in Naumburg (Saale) to discuss topics related to entrepreneurship and innovation and practical implications of the German re-unification process for a potential future re-unification of the Korean peninsula

9 May 2023
Michael Wyrwich participated in the final workshop of the EU-Interreg PASSPARTOOL project (https://projects2014-2020.interregeurope.eu/passpartool/External link) in Brussels. The aim of the workshop was discussing best practices to measure and promote soft innovation in peripheral regions.

25 April 2023
Maria Greve (together with Marcus Dejardin and Korneliusz Pylak) is co-organizing a special session at the 62nd ERSA Congress devoted to “Aligning entrepreneurship, sustainability, and regional policy”. The congress will take place on August 28 - September 1 in Alicante, Spain (https://ersa.eventsair.com/ersa2023/External link). The registration is open until June 30, 2023 via the congress homepageExternal link.

1 April 2023
Matthias Hügel has been appointed as a research associate at the International Center for Higher Education Research (INCHER) and the Department of Economic Policy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Kassel. We congratulate Matthias Hügel on this position and wish him all the best in his new role.

17 March 2023
Yesterday, Michael Fritsch and Michael Wyrwich participated in the paper development workshop for the book “Roadblocks to the Socialist Modernization Path and Transition” that took place at the Technical University of Berlin. The book is edited by Jutta Günther, Dagmara Jajeniak-Quast, Udo Ludwig and Hans-Jürgen Wagener and will be published with Springer-Nature later this year. The articles collected in this book summarize important parts of the work in the ModBlock consortium during the last four years. Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich contribute the article “Historical Legacies of Regional Innovation Activity: The Case of East and West Germany”.

28 February 2023
New publication by Michael Wyrwich and Viktor Slavtchev in the Journal of Comparative Economice. In the paper “The effects of TV content on entrepreneurship: Evidence from German unification“ (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2023.01.008External link), we investigate how access to West German TV during German separation affects entrepreneurship in East Germany after the collapse of communism.

15 February 2023
Maria Greve was invited as a panel speaker to the „Economic Conference Utrecht“ with regard to the topic „Entrepreneurship in the 21st century“.

8 February 2023
Michael Wyrwich published a paper together with Viktor Slavtchev (Ministry for Economic Affairs of the Federal State of Saxony) in the Journal of Comparative Economics. It is entitled “The effects of TV content on entrepreneurship: Evidence from German unification” and empirically analyzes whether television (TV) can influence individuals’ decisions to start businesses. To identify TV's effects, the authors rely on a unique quasi-natural experiment related to the division of Germany after WWII until 1990 into West Germany with a free market economy and the socialist East Germany where starting one's own business was hardly permitted. The paper (open access) can be found hereExternal link.

10 January 2023
The paper “Entrepreneurship in the Long Run: Empirical evidence and historical mechanismsExternal link” by Michael Fritsch and Michael Wyrwich was just published in the journal Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship (Vol. 19, 2023, No. 1, pp. 1-125; https://doi.org/10.1561/0300000100External link). In this poaper the authors review and discuss research on the development of regional entrepreneurship over time. A particular focus is on the long-term persistence of regional levels of entrepreneurship, its explanation, and its meaning for economic development.

2 January 2023
How did German reunification affect innovation activities in the Eastern and the Western part of the country? Does the innovation system of East Germany converge towards West German level? A new paper by Maria Greve Michael Fritsch and Michael Wyrwich investigates these issues by means of a difference-in-difference approach. The findings indicate that integrating the two innovation systems mainly benefitted the West. The paper has the title “Shades of a Socialist Legacy? Innovation Activity in East and West Germany 1877-2014” and can be accessed hereExternal link.

22 December 2022
The co-authored essay by Maria Greve, Michael Fritsch and Michael Wyrwich, "Regionale Ausgangsbedingungen und Unternehmensgründungen im post-sozialistischen Kontext" has now appeared in the book “Transformation in Polen und Ostdeutschland - Voraussetzungen, Verlauf und Ergebnisse” edited by Falk Flade, Anna M. Steinkamp and Konrad Walerski. Wiesbaden 2022: Harrassowitz, pp. 125-140. This book provides an overview of the results of the project network “Obstacles to Modernization in the Economy and Science of the GDR” (ModBlock DDR), funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. It is open access and can be downloaded here https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-euv/files/1253/IPS_Band_11.pdfExternal link.

18 December 2022
Michael Fritsch and Mortiz Zoellner published the paper „Actor Fluidity and Knowledge Persistence in Regional Inventor Networks“.in the Journal economies. The paper can be accessed at https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/10/12/298/pdfExternal link.

1 December 2022
We are happy that Matthias Hügel is a new team member in the Mod-Block project. 

22 November 2022
This year Prof. Michael Fritsch is again listed among the top 2% highly cited academic authors worldwide. See https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/5External link

18 November 2022
Maria Greve, Michael Fritsch and Michael Wyrwich published the paper „One transition story does not fit them all: initial regional conditions and new business formation after communismExternal link” in the journal Post-Communist Economies (Vol. 34, 2022, pp. 1001–1028; https://doi.org/10.1080/14631377.2021.1943912External link). The paper investigates the reasons for the pronounced regional differences of new business formation after the transformation from a centrally planned system to a market economy in East Germany. It is part of the Special Issue „Entrepreneurship and local development in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe edited by Adnan Efendic, Michael Fritsch, Tomasz Mickiewicz and Tomasz Skica. The Editorial can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1080/14631377.2022.2104502External link

17 November 2022
Michael Fritsch was invited to a research seminar at Budapest University, Hungary. He spoke about „Shades of a Socialist Legacy? Innovation Activity in East and West Germany 1877-2014“.

14 November 2022
Michael Fritsch gave an interview at “Deutschlandfunk” (German) about the results of the analysis on regional differences in election results for right-wing populist parties. You can liste to the interview here: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/rechtspopulismus-und-kollektives-gedaechtnis-interview-michael-fritsch-oekonom-dlf-31fc1618-100.htmlExternal link

9 November 2022
A new paper published in the Journal of Economics and Statistics describe our compilation of  the Comprehensive Patent Data of the German Democratic Republic 1949-1990External link. It is co-authored by Ann Hipp, Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve, Jutta Günther, Marcel Lange, Christian Liutik, Beate Pfeifer, Mariia Shkolnykova and Michael Wyrwich. It is a shorter version of our recent Working PaperExternal link at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Faculty of Economics.

8 November
Michael Wyrwich was invited to the meeting of the Committee of Inquiry "Treuhand in Thuringia" in Erfurt. He spoke about “A Legacy of Socialism? Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Development in East Germany”

1 November 2022
Dr. Maria Greve is now Assistant Professor (tenure track) at the Utrecht School of Economics, Netherlands. We congratulate to her new position at a renowned excellent university! She will remain associated with the Mod-Block project.

11 October 2022
A new paper by Maria Greve, Michael Fritsch and Michael Wyrwich entitled “Long-Term Decline of Regions and the Rise of Populism: The Case of GermanyExternal link” has been published online in the Journal of Regional Science. In this paper, we analyze the recent rise of populism in Germany and suggest that high vote shares of populist parties are associated with the long-term decline of a region's relative welfare, which goes beyond a lifespan of people inhabiting such “left behind” places. Moreover, we are able to show that a place-based collective memory about past prosperity plays a crucial role in shaping present resentment. Finally, we find a stronger activation of collective memory about the past that translates into support of populism today among less educated people.

02 October 2022
A news report published on the IT-platform Golem regarding the start-up activities in East Germany refers to the research by Michael Fritsch and Michael Wyrwich. A full text (in German) can be found here: https://www.golem.de/news/start-ups-der-osten-erfindet-sich-neu-2210-166923.htmlExternal link

26 September 2022
A new paper describing the unique GDR patent database, authored by Ann Hipp, Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve, Jutta Günther, Marcel Lange, Christian Liutik, Beate Pfeifer, Mariia Shkolnykova and Michael Wyrwich, entitled “Comprehensive Patent Data of the German Democratic Republic 1949-1990” was accepted for publication in the Journal of Economics and Statistics. A respective working paper can be found hereExternal link.

14 September 2022
Maria Greve gave a talk entitled "Shades of a Socialist Legacy? Innovation Activity in East and West Germany 1877-2014" during the 2022 Annual Conference of the German Association (Verein für Socialpolitik) that took place on September 11 - 14 in Basel, Switzerland.

13 September 2022
Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich prepared a Policy Brief based on the paper "The Long-run Effects of Communism and Transition to a Market System on Self-Employment: The Case of Germany," which appeared recently in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. The Policy Brief (in German) can be found here: https://www.ifm-bonn.org/publikationen/policy-brief-unternehmertum-im-fokus/detailansicht/langfristige-auswirkungen-von-sozialismus-und-transformation-auf-die-selbststaendigkeit-in-ostdeutschland-1External link

Related to the Policy Brief, Michael Wyrwich gave an interview to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (F.A.Z.) on the late consequences of socialism and explained not only why there are more self-employed in East Germany despite 40 years of socialism and anti-entrepreneurial policies in the GDR, but also what are the structural differences in self-employment of both German parts persisting until today. The full text of the interview (in German) can be found here: https://zeitung.faz.net/faz/unternehmen/2022-09-13/eine-spaetfolge-des-sozialismus/803337.html?GEPC=s1External link

26 August 2022
Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich organized two special sessions at the ERSA congressExternal link that took place on August 23-26 in Pecs, Hungary. One special session was co-organized with Korneliusz Pylak and dealt with "Historical Roots of Regional Entrepreneurship and InnovationExternal link" and the other was co-organized with Marcus Dejardin and was devoted to "Aligning entrepreneurship, sustainability and regional policyExternal link". Maria Greve gave a talk on "Shades of Socialist Legacy? Innovation Activity in East and West Germany 1921-20142.

6 July 2022
A new paper by Michael Fritsch and Michael Wyfrwich entitled "Initial conditions and regional performance in the aftermath of disruptive shocks" is now published online by Industrial and Corporate Change. Taking the example of East Germany after socialism we find that entrepreneurship and knowledge are key regional resources for mastering the turbulent transition to a market economy.

22 July 2022
A new paper by Alina Sorgner and Michael Wyrwich entitled “Calling Baumol: what telephones can tell us about the allocation of entrepreneurial talent in the face of radical institutional changesExternal link” has been published in the Journal of Business Venturing. We analyze start-up activity during drastic institutional change and find that many individuals who demonstrated commitment to the anti-entrepreneurial communist regime in the GDR were active in launching new ventures soon after German re-unification. This paradox can be understood through the lens of Baumol's and Kirzner's theories.

8 July 2022
Michael Wyrwich has prepared a new version of the Entrepreneurship Compendium (Gründungs- und Selbstständigenatlas) that is freely available hereExternal link. The Entrepreneurship Compendium contains data on yearly startup rate in German districts (Kreise) from 1976-2020 (West Germany) and 1993-2020 (East Germany) as well as self-employment rates for the period 1996-2019. Data distinguishes between three broad economic sectors (manufacturing, construction and services).

6 July 2022
Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich (together with Korneliusz Pylak) organize a special session at the GEOINNO congress that took place on July 4-6 in Milan (https://ersa.eventsair.com/ersa2022/External link). In the special session devoted to the „Historical Roots of Regional InnovationExternal link“, we presented own research entitled „Shades of a Socialist Legacy? Innovation Activity in East and West Germany 1921-2014“.

22 June 2022
Michael Wyrwich was invited to present his research to the research seminar at the University of Hohenheim. He gave a presentation entitled "Shades of a Socialist Legacy? Innovation Activity in East and West Germany 1925-2014".

14 June 2022
In a joint effort, we have prepared the patents of the former East German State, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and made it available for public use at the GESIS. See Hipp, Ann, Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve, Jutta Günther, Marcel Lange, Christian Liutik, Beate Pfeifer, Mariia Shkolnykova and Michael Wyrwich (2022). Patentdaten der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (DDR) (1949-1990). GESIS, Köln. Datenfile Version 1.0.0, https://doi.org/10.7802/2423External link.

18 May 2022
A new paper by Petrik Runst and Michael Wyrwich entitled “Poor soil as a fertile breeding ground: the role of historical agricultural specialization for the persistence of regional differences in craftsExternal link” has been published in the Annals of Regional Science. We examine the regional persistence of the crafts sector over a period of more than 100 years and by utilizing data from Germany, we demonstrate a strong persistence of regional differences in the concentration of crafts people in rural areas and no persistence in urban areas.

9 May 2022
Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich participated in the first meeting of the DFG network "The dynaics of innovation systems: Perspectives, Influences and Operationalization" that took place in Bremen. Michael Wyrwich gave a keynote talk entitled "Innovation activities in selected OECD countries: Is Innovation (increasingly) concentrated in Large Cities?". Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich gave another keynote talk entitled "Shades of a Socialist Legacy? Innovation Activity in East and West Germany 1925-2014".

8 May 2022
A new paper „The Long-Run Effects of Communism and Transition to a Market System on Self-Employment: The Case of GermanyExternal link“, authored by Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich has been published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. We investigate how self-employment in East Germany was impacted by 40 years of Soviet-style communism and the subsequent shock transition to a market economic system. Our results show that the strict anti-entrepreneurial policies prevalent during the Soviet regime do not have a long-run negative effect on self-employment in East Germany. Quite to the contrary, self-employment in East Germany today is higher than before German separation. Our analysis suggests that current differences in self-employment between East and West Germany are pre-dominantly a result of the sudden shock transformation that occurred with reunification, rather than the outcome of four decades of anti-entrepreneurial policies and ideology.

27 April 2022
Michael Fritsch gave an interview on the reduction of value added tax on basic food products. See his arguments (in German) hereExternal link.

13 April 2022
Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich prepared a contribution entitled “The Long-Term Consequences of Socialism and German Unification for Innovation Activities in East Germany” (“Die langfristigen Folgen des Sozialismus und der deutschen Vereinigung für Innovationsaktivitäten in Ostdeutschland”). This contribution is a part of the dossier “Long paths of German unity” published by Federal Agency for Civic Education. We describe the development of innovation activities in East Germany since reunification in 1990. In particular, we address the question of the extent to which the low innovation performance in East Germany, which persisted for more than three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is a longer-term consequence of the GDR's socialist planned economy or the transformation process. The full text (in German) can be found hereExternal link.

24 March 2022
A new paper entitled „Micro dynamics and macro stability in inventor networksExternal link“, published by Michael Fritsch and Muhamed Kudic in the Journal of Technology Transfer. Based on co-patenting data of the entire population of West German inventors in the field of laser technology, we analyze the development of their network from the onset of the technology in the early 1960 over a period of 45 years. A main focus is on the highly dynamic processes at the micro-level of inventors and their ties that seem to be inconsistent with the remarkable stable structures at the macro level.

19 Feruary 2022
A new paper by Michael Wyrwich entitled “Historical episodes and their legacies across space: A famous case revisitedExternal link” is published in the Journal of Regional Science. In contrast to the conventional wisdom in academia, policy, and the public, the current paper shows that the higher share of working women in East German regions is not due to a legacy of socialism. Female labor force participation was already remarkably higher in the East before the introduction of socialism. An important lesson is that any attempt to explain spatial variation in individual decision-making by persisting legacies of certain historical episodes requires a careful assessment of regional conditions predating these episodes.

29 December 2021
In a new paper entitled “The COVID-19 Pandemic and Entrepreneurship in GermanyExternal link” published in Foresight and STI Governance, Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich provide a mid-term evaluation of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on entrepreneurship in Germany. We find that the overall level of business registrations slightly decreased during the first year of the pandemic, but that the effect is specific to certain industries. Innovative manufacturing industries and technology-oriented services experienced an increase in numbers of start-ups.

06 December 2021
Maria Greve was invited to give a talk on the "Long-Term Decline of Regions and the Rise of Populism: The Case of Germany" during a digital workshop "Varieties of Populism in East and West", jointly organized by the Higher School of Economics in Russia and the Free University of Berlin. 

01 December 2021
The 3rd, revised edition of the textbook "Entrepreneurship - Theory, Empiricism, Policy"External link („Entrepreneurship – Theorie, Empirie, Politik“), authored by Michael Fritsch and Michael Wyrwich, was published by Springer-Gabler. The graphics included in the book are available for download in PPT format hereExternal link.

16 November 2021
Michael Wyrwich was invited to present his reasearch to the research seminar of the Faculty of Economics at the Universite de Namur, Belgium. He gavee a lecture on the causes of regional differences in start-up activities in East Germany.

04 November 2021 
A new publication entitled “Is open innovation imprinted on new ventures? The cooperation-inhibiting legacy of authoritarian regimesExternal link” and authored by Michael Wyrwich, Philip J. Steinberg, Florian Noseleit, Pedro de Faris has been just published online in Research Policy. We use a unique database that includes East and West German founders to identify regional differences in activities conducted by authoritarian regimes that could inhibit trust. We find that founders who were exposed to high levels of secret police surveillance in the former socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) are less likely to engage in interfirm R&D cooperation.

03 Novbember 2021
Michael Wyrwich was incited to participate in the research seminar of the Deparment of Human Geography and Spatial Planning at the Utrecht University. He gave a lecture on innovation activities in East and West Germany as well as in other OECD countries.

30 September 2021
Michael Fritsch and Michael Wyrwich were invited as kexnote speakers at the 26th APDR Workshop - Civic Universities, Ecosystems, and Regional Development in Low-Industrial-Density Regions organized by the University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal. They gave a presentation on innovation activities in East and West Germany as wess as in other OECD countries.

27 August 2021
Michael Wyrwich was invited to participate in a workshop for South Korean officials organized by the Free University of Berlin. He gave a lecture and personal interviews on entrepreneurship and innovation in East German after reunification.

10 August 2021 
A new paper entitled „One transition story does not fit them all: initial regional conditions and new business formation after communism“External link is published by Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich in the Post-Communist Economies. We investigate the reasons for the pronounced regional differences of new business formation after the transformation from a centrally planned system to a market economy in East Germany and find that a relatively high start-up rates after the transition can be observed in regions that had a well-qualified workforce and a relatively high share of self-employment left over at the end of the communist period.

24 July 2021
A new paper by Michael Fritsch, Korneliusz Pylak and Michael Wyrwich entitled “Historical roots of entrepreneurship in different regional contexts—the case of PolandExternal link” was published in Small Business Economics. By exploiting different types of historical self-employment in regions of Poland, a country that experienced different types of disruptive developments, we do not find a persistent effect of the general level of historical private sector self-employment. There is, however, a pronounced positive relationship between high regional levels of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship in the 1920s and current start-up activity in general, even in areas where large parts of the local population were displaced after World War II. We therefore conclude that the historical regional knowledge stock, as reflected by knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship, can be an important and stable historical root of modern entrepreneurship despite disruptive historical shocks and population discontinuities.

25 June 2021
A new book entitled "The Geography of Entrepreneurial PsychologyExternal link" ist published by Martin Obschonka, Michael Fritsch and Michael Stuetzer. Highlighting recent empirical advances in mapping and analyzing regional differences in macro-psychological factors associated with entrepreneurship, considering their significance to cintemporary entrepreneurial and geographical psychology.

14 June 2021
What characterizes the development of the East German start-up landscape since the end of the GDR? What role do regional conditions play in this? Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich provide answers to these questions in their contribution "Entrepreneurship and Knowledge as Drivers of Regional Development in East Germany" for the Policy Brief series "Entrepreneurship in Focus". The main result can be summarized as follows: East German regions in which private enterprise already existed at the time of reunification and the employees had a high level of qualification coped better with the abrupt transition to a market economy compared to regions without these conditions. Issue 4/21 of the IfM Bonn/FGF Policy Brief Entrepreneurship in focus entitled "Entrepreneurship and Knowledge as Drivers of Regional Development in East Germany" can be downloaded here:

Policy Brief "Unternehmertum im Fokus" (vormals "Mittelstand aktuell")External link

09 June 2021
A new paper by Michael Fritsch and Michael Wyrwich entitled "Does Successful Innovation Require Large Urban Areas? Germany as a CounterexampleExternal link" is published in Economic Geography. Taking the example of Germany we show the effect of history, institutions and the gernal settlement structure on the regional distribution and the success of innovation activities. We conclude that institutional factors should play a more prominent role in theories that aim at explaining the spatial distribution of innovation activities.

05 May 2021
Michael Wyrwich is invited to the WM/City-REDI External Seminar Series at the University of Birmingham to give a lecture on the role of universities for regional entrepreneurship in German regions.

02 May 2021
A new paper entitled "Is innovation (increasingly) concentrated in large cities? An international comparsonExternal link" published online in Research Policy by Michael Wyrwich and Michael Fritsch. We investigate the geographic concentration of patented inventions in 14 developed countries and find that the most countries, except the US, South Korea and Japan, patenting is geographically dispersed with considerable popular theories overemphasize the importance of large cities for innovation activities.

30 April 2021
Michael Fritsch and Michael Wyrwich are invited for the REAL-University of Illinois & PPGE-PUCRS Research Seminar Series to give a lecture on innovation activities in East and West Germany and in other OECD countries and their causes.

29 April 2021
Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve and Michael Wyrwich were invited to give a keynote talk during the "Creative Spark-Workshop" on "Thr long-run Effects of Socialism and Transition to a Market System on Entrepreneurship - The Case of Germany".

18 March 2021
Michael Fritsch and Michael Wyrwich (together with Korneliusz Pylak, University of Lublin) presented their work on historical roots of regional entrepreneurship in Poland at the workshop series "The Evolution, Persistence and Success of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems" organized by the University of Cardiff. You can find a recording of the talk here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-heuJIFoIF6LGdyocEO0a-z0u8Ee19OyExternal link

Michael Wyrwich is invited to the WM/City-REDI External Seminar Series at the University of Birmingham where on May 5 he will present latest research on the role of universities for stimulating regional entrepreneurship.

Maria Kristalova (Principal Investigator) and Michael Wyrwich (Co-Applicant) obtained a grant for their proposal “Digitalization of historical patents: new avenues for innovation research” based on the Data Science Call 2020 (350 hours support by data scientist + additional costs) issued by the University of Groningen. The project aims at digitizing German patent data for the period 1877 and 1945 and complements on-going innovation research within the Mod-Block-DDR project. The project duration is 2 years. The digitized data will be used to answer various research questions related to the historical evolution of technology and persistence of regional differences of innovative activities.

Michael Fritsch, Maria Kristalova, Michael Wyrwich, and further international colleagues co-organize two special sessions on “Historical Roots of Regional Entrepreneurship and Innovation” and “Linking entrepreneurship and regional policy”  at this year’s ERSA congress “Territorial Futures – Visions and scenarios for a resilient Europe” (Bolzano, Italy, https://ersa.org/events/60th-ersa-congress-2/External link.) The All interested participants are cordially invited to submit their abstracts for both special sessions until March 9 (https://ersa.eventsair.com/60th-ersa-congress-bolzano-italy/).

New Paper entitled “One Transition Story Does Not Fit Them All: Initial regional conditions and new business formation after communism” by Michael Fritsch, Maria Kristalova and Michael Wyrwich was accepted for publication in the journal “Post-Communist Economies”. We find that the re-emergence of entrepreneurship after the transition was heavily affected by the regional stock of knowledge and the prevalence of a historically grown entrepreneurial culture that is pre-socialist in origin.

From January 12 until January 21, 2021, Michael Wyrwich and Maria Kristalova give a joint lecture on “Regional Development” for master and PhD students. The lecture also comprises special sessions about the role of entrepreneurship and innovation in East Germany. Students are familiarized with latest results from own on-going research in the Mod-Block-DDR project.

As of December 1, Michael Wyrwich joins the Passpartool project, which is financed by the Interreg-initiative of the European Union. The overall project objective is to improve the capability of public policy makers to develop efficient policies supporting non-formal, soft, and open innovation processes in the regional actors, with a focus on non-R&D -driven and social innovation. There is also a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD_eGpEYNEIExternal link) presenting the project. The practice-oriented project represents also the opportunity to complement and transfer research from the Mod-Block project.