Marginality in East Germany - a case study

The reunification of 1990 changed the patterns of geographical marginality in Germany. While some regions along the former Iron Curtain have become somewhat more central, regions along the German-Polish border have become even more peripheral. The focus of this paper is to shed more light on the causes for lagging economic performance in remote East German regions, using the county Uecker-Randow as a case study. The county Ludwigslust, located in the same federal state, but in a more favourable geographic location, is used as a reference. The results of the study are derived from statistical analysis, expert interviews and business surveys in the course of the EU project ‘DORA’ (=Dynamics of Rural Areas). Contrary to other case study regions of the project, the results for UeckerRandow suggest that here the geographic location and related deficits of transport infrastructure have in fact been the most decisive explanatory factor for economic decline in the post Socialist period. Additionally, the region has suffered from the unfavourable economic structure it inherited from Socialist modes of production. Introduction. 1 Patterns of marginality in Germany. 1 Locational features of Uecker-Randow . 3 Lack of Investments . 4 Difficult operating conditions for enterprises . 5 Massive unemployment. 6 ‘Brain drain‘ . 7 Institutional performance. 8 Mismatch and work ethic . 9 Economic structure . 10 Conclusion and outlook . 11 References . 13 Marginality in East Germany – a Case Study Gerd Hachmöller, Institute of Farm Economics and Rural Studies, Federal Agricultural Research Centre, Braunschweig Introduction The current EU research project DORA ("Dynamics of Rural Areas"), is an exploratory study analysing the different economic performance of rural regions in a comparative and interdisciplinary way. The project is investigating eight ‘matched pairs’ of sixteen case studies in four EU countries – Greece, Germany, Sweden and Scotland. Each ‘matched pair’ consists of one region that exhibits successful economic development over the medium-term (10-20 years) and one that exhibits less successful economic development, measured according to a range of indicators (including employment change, investment activities, productivity, migration and unemployment rates). An exploration of differences in regional development success is attempted by analysing both 'tangible' factors (such as infrastructure, economic structure, natural resources etc.) and 'intangible' factors (such as community, networks, institutions, quality of life, etc.). This paper draws principally on the results from the two East German case study regions, Uecker-Randow and Ludwigslust. In addition to statistical data, the results are based on expert interviews with regional actors from local institutions, enterprises, associations and others. Furthermore, a postal business survey was conducted, focussing on location factors and institutional performance, in each of the German study regions. Patterns of marginality in East Germany The issue of geographical marginality in Germany has changed twice in the last century, firstly, by the delineation of borders after the Second World War, and secondly, with the collapse of the GDR and German reunification in 1989/1990. In East Germany, at both the intra-German and the Polish border formerly central regions became peripheral as a result of WW II. 1 This paper draws on the joint work of the DORA team. I would like to acknowledge the contributions of our research team members Birgit Koch, Helmut Schrader and Lars Masurek, and our research partners from Scotland, Greece and Sweden: John Bryden, Jane Atterton, Paul Courtney, Anja Timm, Keith Hart, Gilian Munro, Vania Ceccato, Lars Olaf Persson, Angelos Efstratoglou, Sofia Efstratoglou, Emmanouela Kouroussi. DORA is funded by the European Commission under the Fourth Framework Programme for Research and Technology Development, Contract FAIR6-CT98-4162. Further information on DORA can be found at: http://www.abdn. ac.uk/arkleton/dora1199.htm Just as in West Germany, a North-South economic divide evolved in the GDR, too. The northern parts of the country have traditionally been sparsely populated, economically weak and dominated by agriculture. The so-called ‘industrialisation of the north’ attempted to counterbalance the backward position of the region and located clusters of industries here. However, due to the Socialist modes of production, the forces of centralisation and agglomeration in the post-war period were arguably not as strong in the GDR as in West Germany. Instead, the location of industries in the GDR was guided by the aim of full employment and equal living conditions. Accordingly, industries were also located in peripheral regions in order to supply workplaces. *) NUTS level 1 regions **) NUTS level 3 Source: EU Commission, quoted in: BRAUN 1997 Fig. 1: GDP per capita in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, compared to the lowest income regions of the EU*, 1996 (EU =100) After German reunification and the introduction of market forces, industries in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern often suffered from lacking suitable location factors. The distance to markets, based on the low population density and the peripheral location in Germany and the EU, reduced the attractiveness of the region for new investments. Furthermore, in the GDR production had been primarily directed towards the COMECON countries, 55