TY  - JOUR
AU  - Sinn,Hans-Werner
TI  - Macroeconomic Aspects of German Unification
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 3596
PY  - 1991
Y2  - January 1991
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3596
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3596.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Hans-Werner Sinn
Ifo Institute -
Leibniz Institute for Economic Research
at University of Munich
Poschingerstr. 5
81679 Munich
GERMANY
Tel: 49-89-21802748
Fax: 49-89-397303;49-89-8506434 (home)
E-Mail: sinn@ifo.de
AB  - The paper comments on the economic effects of the German unification. Apart from discussing the unification in an international perspective, analyzing the distributional consequences, and pointing to structural adjustment problems, it emphasizes the distinction between the frequently cited money overhang and the real asset overhang which characterizes communist countries. The paper argues that the unification paid too little attention to the latter, endowing East Germans with insufficient claims on state owned enterprises. The centralized privatization of state owned enterprises, which bypasses the East German population, is seen as a major obstacle to quick recovery, and an alternative privatization procedure is discussed.
ER  -