Comments on: The East German productivity paradox

By: Nadine Wolf

Nadine Wolf — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 20:02:19 +0000

I admit, the academic education concerning „economics“ or „business adminstration“ was just rediculous. However, there´s more than that, right? A person named Juri Gagarin was the first human in outer space. Somehow the Eastern block states managed to construct a space shuttle before other nations did. Anyway, besides the poor education regarding business sciences I don´t think that the GDR lacked of high quality education in other areas. My father, for instance, studied medical science in Eastern Germany and Romania: he´s a fantastic physisician and to my amazement he still remebers lots of things he learnt in the 1960’s. He even received some docaration from the German Medical Association due to his medical performance and knowledge.
I don´t think that education worsened in the 80’s. And of course, there are many former GDR citizens in senior positions nowadays. There just one structural difference to Western Germany: in Eastern Germany economy is only (or rather even more) driven by small and medium sized enterprises. All those companies do have senior managers and most of learnt their trade in the educational system of the GDR. Of course, there are some corporations as well and of course, some are lead and founded by former GDR citzizens. Knut Löschke, for example (my former boss), he studied physics, chemistry, mathematics, material science and information technology in the GDR. He invented the so-called Microsoft Frame Agreements in Germany and founded PC-WARE, a listed corporation, employing 1.600 people in 25 countries of the world. Believe me, that guy is nothing short of his Western Germany collegues… rather the opposite. Since I worked in his Investor Relations Department, I can tell you: he´s not only really smart, he´s also very, very successful.
Anyway, in my opinion the reason that Eastern Germany lags behind the Western part of the country from an economic point of view is not poor education. It´s a structural problem. The Sowjet Union has exhausted this part of Germany for many years. Maladminsitration hindered economic growth for decades. After the fall of the Wall, many well educated Eastern Germans fled. They still do. We didn´t have many profitable companies and the economic structure is still different. People don´t want to work in companies called “Mr. Miller’s Pastries” in Dresden; they want to work at Volkswagen, Porsche and L’oreal. That´s more fashionable (and better paid, anyway). It is a vicious circle, because even the demographic structure has changed over the years. Surplus of (uneducated) men: Well-educated women can´t find attractive spouses (I mean not concerning looks) here anymore and therefore they just go away to Munich and Hamburg. Cities like Hoyerswerda are just dying off. But I think that´s all going to change. Eastern German cities are becoming more and more attractive and some day there will be economic growth on the Western German level.

By: James Farrell

James Farrell — Sat, 29 May 2010 12:59:03 +0000

Thanks very much for sharing your first hand experiences, Nadine. I didn’t anticipate that this post would come out of dormancy. I notice that your comment was mostly about early schooling, and I don’t think that the researchers I mentioned are identifying that as the problem. Rather, they refer to technical and university education. The guy from Chemnitz talks about infratructure, by which he must mean facilities and equipment, and maybe that’s what handicapped vocational and professional training in that 1980-1990 period. The usual argument about socialist economies, is that technical training was for specific jobs operating with particular machinery, and that it didn’t impart general skills and flexibility. I know that what applies to, say Bulgaria, might not apply to the DDR, biut if that’s basically right, East Germans over 40 years old would have trouble competing for jobs as engineers, architects, financial managers and so on, in the globalised post-unification enviroment. I wonder what your experience has been — if you’ve worked in high-tech companies in the East How many of the senior positions were held by 40+ Easteners? At the end of the day, statistics on GDP per capita can be expected to match our experience of people around us are earning (except in places like Dubai).

By: Nadine Wolf

Nadine Wolf — Fri, 28 May 2010 10:05:28 +0000

Beeing German, or more precisely East German, I can´t really share the hypothesis concerning the educational problems of the GDR. In fact, apart from some special communistic contents of teaching (e.g. the so-called civics), the educational system of the GDR was better than today’s. It began at the créche (EVERY child went to a créche and was educated there – today: in Eastern Germany 40%, in Western Germany only 8% of the children are put up to such an institution) and after that every children went to a kindergarten (today: Eastern Germany: 93%, Western Germany: 89%) where they learnt how to learn. Nowadays teachers often bemoan that school children are no longer capable of sitting at a table for 45 minutes listening to a teacher. One might argue that its parents should teach a child. Of course, a child is able to learn those things at home as well. However, some parents just aren´t capableof teaching their children simple things such as: speaking proper German, social competencies, simple rules… When I was little I went to school 6 days a week, sitting at a table for six hrs every day, afterwards we had to attend different sports clubs. And do you know what: it didn´t harm me at all. I remember all my teachers as friendly people, not really pressurizing the kids.
The best school systems (according to PISA results) are based on all-day schools. Today, in Germany children are asked at school: “Do you want to play or study today?” Well, we all know the answer. However, there are still differences between the methods of teaching between Estern and Western Germany, because some of the East German teachers or kindergarten workers are still from the “old school” using their GDR methods. The result is just amazing: Eastern German pupils reach way better results in the PISA studies than Western German pupils do. Coincidence?
Also, in GDR every person had to participate in some kind of education (the bad thing: only every second generation was allowed to study at a university). Today, 20% of the economically active pupoluation has no education at all (besides secondary school which is obligatory to visit). No surprise: In Eastarn Germany, that rate is lower.
I could go on like that, finding many arguments against that hypothesis. Besides regime-oriented paradigm, we had no educational problem in Eastern Germany before 1990. We are having educational problems today. Although the share of university graduates is rising: companies bemoan more and more each year that secondary school graduates are not able to fulfil the simplest requirements anymore… We are not only having an economic crisis, we have an educational crisis as well. And that´s just alarming!

By: Tel_

Tel_ — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:53:46 +0000

There has been East to West migration that creates a positive feedback effect. East Germans who have a bit of initiative, and useful skills are attracted to move into wealthy West German regions where they can get a job. This in turn makes the West German businesses more successful and more attractive to future employees, and makes life more difficult for anyone starting a new business in the East.

Once a given geographic region gets a headstart cause by whatever historical coincidence (trade routes, natural resources, war, etc) then keeping ahead no longer depends on the original advantage, because of infrastructure, migration, reputation, inertia, and other positive feedback effects.

By: Rafe Champion

Rafe Champion — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:32:19 +0000

James, the “high wage” explanation is fleshed out at this link which just turned up on an email list. Have not had time to digest at this stage.

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/4177

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:57:01 +0000

FWIW I know a number of Communist-educated people and they (ok, the girls) are all excellent hula-hoopers, be they from China, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan, Romania, Russia or the Ukraine. So on that score at least Communist education was/is certainly consistent.

By: James Farrell

James Farrell — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:07:00 +0000

Thanks for these comments.

Geoff: My understanding is that Soviet Bloc education levels were greatly overstated in international statistics because of the numbers of teenagers enrolled in ‘technical’ colleges that looked on paper like secondary schools but in fact provided extremely narrow occupational training. For the one-fifth or so that did real secondary study, preparing students for the professions, the education was more likely comparable to Western standards. But I’m not an authority on the DDR case.

Russ: I don’t believe that’s actually true about the Rhine etc. The richest German states (apart from the city states of Hamburg and Bremen) are Hesse and Bavaria. But the general issue is worth raising. Given that the poorest western states have average incomes of about 75% of the richest, is it significant that the average of the eastern states is in turn about 75% of the former? Geographical explanations for wealth have a tendency to veer towards tautolgy — Luxemburg is so rich… well, because it’s Luxemburg). But of course history is important, and the pre-WW2 configuration of the European economy must play a big part in what we observe now. Perhaps some eminent expert on German regional economic disparities will drop in on this thread and enlighten us.

By: Russ

Russ — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:46:37 +0000

James, what level of convergence is actually expected? I ask this, because, there are going to be geographical variations that aren't related to 'level of technical knowledge' but to 'access to markets', the same as in West Germany now. The rich parts of West Germany are clustered to the west, along the Rhine and close to densely populated parts of the UK, Benelux, France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. East Germany backs onto relatively sparse and poor Poland. It was a poorer area before communism began, and it shouldn't be a surprise if it remained so.

By: GeoffRobinson

GeoffRobinson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:43:01 +0000

Interesting, I had always thought that Communist countries performed fairly well on education (and on social welfare) for their income level. Is the 1980-90 shortfall evidence of the final crisis of the regime?