ECONOMIC CRISES, STRUCTURAL CHANGE 131
that had not received enough attention for far too long. The symptoms of
this were rising unemployment and the perpetually overwhelming stress
on the social welfare system, which were the contradictory results of a
bundle of diff erent developments. The growth in productivity required by
an economy that had become increasingly globalized since the 1970s, as
well as entrenched structures governing economic activity, for example,
blocked substantial employment growth. The further expansion of social
expenditures and the decline in the employable share of the population
put a strain on the social welfare systems, which was further exacerbated
by the way in which the costs of reunifi cation were fi nanced. Now, in the
aftermath of the labor market reforms in the early twenty-fi rst century,
the German economy is doing much better than ever before. Whether
this status can be maintained over the long run, however, is very much
dependent on the further course of sectoral developments as well as the
country’s ability to deal with the smoldering crisis of the Euro and the
challenges of globalization.
Ralf Ahrens studied modern history, political science, and economics at
the universities in Frankfurt/Main and Freiburg/Breisgau. After receiv-
ing his doctorate in economic history at the Technische Universität Dres-
den, he held postdoctoral research positions in contemporary history at
the universities in Dresden and Jena. He has been doing research at the
Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam (ZZF) since 2009. His book
publications include Gegenseitige Wirtschaftshilfe? Die DDR im RGW—
Strukturen und handelspolitische Strategien (2000); Flick: Der Konzern, die
Familie, die Macht (with Tim Schanetzky, Jörg Osterloh and Norbert Frei,
2009); Die “Deutschland AG”: Historische Annäherungen an den bundes-
deutschen Kapitalismus (ed. with Boris Gehlen and Alfred Reckendrees,
2013).
André Steiner is a senior research fellow at the Center for Contempo-
rary History in Potsdam and professor of economic and social history
at the University of Potsdam. His Ph.D. is from Humboldt-University in
Berlin, where he studied history and economics. He is a former research
fellow at the Institutes for Economic History in Berlin and Mannheim
and interim professor for social and economic history at the Ruhr Univer-
sity Bochum. He has published Die DDR-Wirtschaftsreform der sechziger
Jahre: Konfl ikt zwischen Effi zienz- und Machtkalkül (1999) and The Plans
that Failed: An Economic History of the GDR (2010). He is coeditor of Der
Mythos von der postindustriellen Welt: Wirtschaftlicher Strukturwandel in
Deutschland 1960 bis 1990 (2016).