Sectoral Innovation Systems, Corporate Strategies, and Competitiveness of the German Economy in a Globalised World

The EU Barcelona target assumes a close causal relationship between corporate R&D, the competitiveness of business firms and the economic performance of industrial countries. Testing this hypothesis, this paper contrasts innovation and production activities in four research-intensive manufacturing sectors (chemicals and pharmaceuticals, motor vehicles, machinery, and electrical engineering). Starting point are observed long-term changes in worldwide value added of the manufacturing sector.The empirical analysis is based on a unique survey of R&D-intensive business firms in Germany and 50 personal interviews in large industrial companies. The results show that there is no simple connection between R&D and competitiveness. Moreover, the likely consequences of promoting R&D differ substantially between industries.Sectoral innovation systems, corporate R&D Strategies, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, machinery, electrical engineering,motor vehicles, bazaar effect

Fair financing in Germany's public health insurance: income-related contributions or flat premiums

Social justice in health care insurance relates to both, the utilisation of services and the financing of the system. With respect to the latter, in its World Health Report 2000 the WHO promoted a concept of fair financing that asks for contributions to health care financing that are proportional to households' capacity to pay. This claim contains three dimensions: the rejection of risk-related premiums, the claim that all households with equal income should pay equal premiums (horizontal justice), and the suggestion that higher income should lead to proportionally higher premiums (vertical justice). In this paper we first discuss the normative dimension of fair financing and develop a slightly modified version of the WHO's normative framework. Second, empirical findings based on WHO data and on data from the ECuity project are presented for selected countries. While the WHO concept does not allow drawing unambiguous conclusions, the latter shows, that Germany's system is regressive. With respect to the normative framework developed we can therefore conclude that future reforms should make the system more progressive. Against this background, two recent alternative strategies for reforming health financing, the Bürgerversicherung and the Gesundheitsprämie, are discussed. While both reform options are to be judged as more or less equivalent regarding horizontal justice and the rejection of risk-related premiums, some evidence is given towards the inferiority of the Gesundheitsprämie model with respect to vertical justice. --

The self-regulatory German health care system between growing competition and state hierarchy

This article focuses on the changing role of the state in financing, providing and regulating health care services under the German health care system from 1970-2000. While a reduced role of the state can be observed in terms of financing, our analysis of service provision indicates inconsistent developments. Monetary resource flow analyses indicate a decrease in private service provision as a percentage of total health expenditure, but when analysing the development of health employment we see a growth in "private" health care personnel. The most important changes, however, have taken place in terms of regulation. Since the early 1990s, the traditionally self-regulatory German health care system has simultaneously faced growing competition and state hierarchy. -- Thema des Beitrags ist die sich ändernde Rolle des Staates in der Finanzierung, Leistungserbringung und Regulierung im deutschen Gesundheitssystem zwischen 1970 und 2000. Während sich bei der Finanzierung von Gesundheitsleistungen ein Rückzug des Staates abzeichnet, ergibt die Analyse der Leistungserbringung keinen einheitlichen Trend. Gemessen in Prozent der Gesamtausgaben für Gesundheit zeigt die Untersuchung der monetären Ressourcen eine Reduzierung der privaten Leistungserbringung, wohingegen bei der Analyse des Gesundheitspersonals ein Anstieg der privaten Leistungserbringung zu erkennen ist. Die wichtigsten Änderungen erfolgten allerdings im Bereich der Regulierung. Seit den frühen 1990er Jahren befindet sich das traditionell selbstverwaltete deutsche Gesundheitssystem zunehmend in einer Umklammerung aus staatlicher Regulierung einerseits und Wettbewerb andererseits.

Public Policy and Success of Business Start-ups in Germany

In this paper, we evaluate the success of publicly supported business start-ups by comparing the outcomes of various support measures. Our question is: do business starter get what they need? Since we do not know the needs of the founders we analyse (1) who received which kind of support (financial support, individual coaching, general information) and (2) which kind of support is successful for whom with regard to his/her job history (employed, unemployed or being not part of the job market). While start-up measures possibly could aim at different kinds of eff ects, our focus is on the effect on subsequent firm growth. The analysis is based on a survey conducted in 2005. The sample was drawn from a highly heterogeneous population of business start-ups. By using propensity score exact matching for success measurement we try to capture those differences.Business start-ups, public policy, public support, matching

Nach der Reform ist vor der Reform

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Reform der Pflegeversicherung durch Weiterentwicklung des bestehenden Systems

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Explaining Differences in Remuneration Rates of Nursing Homes in Germany

Remuneration rates of German nursing homes are prospectively negotiated between long-term care insurance (LTCI) and social assistance on the one side and nursing homes on the other. They diff er considerably across regions while there is no evidence for substantial differences in care provision. This paper explains the differences in the remuneration rates by observable characteristics of the nursing home, its residents and its region with a special focus on the largest federal state North-Rhine-Westphalia, in which the most expensive nursing homes are located. We use data from the German Federal Statistical Office for 2005 on all nursing homes that off er full-time residential care for the elderly. We find that differences in remuneration rates can partly be explained by exogenous factors. Controls for residents, nursing homes, and district characteristics explain roughly 30% of the price difference; 40% can be ascribed to a regionally different kind of negotiation between nursing homes and LTCI. 30% of the raw price difference remains unexplained by observable characteristics.Nursing homes; determinants of remuneration rates; regional price differences

Fair financing in Germany\u27s public health insurance : income-related contributions or flat premiums

Social justice in health care insurance relates to both, the utilisation of services and the financing of the system. With respect to the latter, in its World Health Report 2000 the WHO promoted a concept of fair financing that asks for contributions to health care financing that are proportional to households’ capacity to pay. This claim contains three dimensions: the rejection of risk-related premiums, the claim that all households with equal income should pay equal premiums (horizontal justice), and the suggestion that higher income should lead to proportionally higher premiums (vertical justice). In this paper we first discuss the normative dimension of fair financing and develop a slightly modified version of the WHO’s normative framework. Second, empirical findings based on WHO data and on data from the ECuity project are presented for selected countries. While the WHO concept does not allow drawing unambiguous conclusions, the latter shows, that Germany’s system is regressive. With respect to the normative framework developed we can therefore conclude that future reforms should make the system more progressive. Against this background, two recent alternative strategies for reforming health financing, the Bürgerversicherung and the Gesundheitsprämie, are discussed. While both reform options are to be judged as more or less equivalent regarding horizontal justice and the rejection of risk-related premiums, some evidence is given towards the inferiority of the Gesundheitsprämie model with respect to vertical justice

Convergence of divergence of OECD health care systems

This article focuses on two major questions concerning the changing role of the state in the health care systems of OECD countries. Firstly, we ask whether major changes in the level of state involvement (in health care systems) have occurred in the past thirty years. Given the fact that three types of health care systems - which are characterized by a distinct role of the state - evolved during the golden age, we secondly discuss how this distinctiveness - or more technically: variance - has changed in the period under scrutiny. While many authors analysing health policy changes exclusively concentrate on finance and expenditure data, we simultaneously consider financing, service provi-sion, and regulation. As far as financing is concerned, we observe a small shift from the public to the pri-vate sphere with a tendency towards convergence in this dimension. Expanding Peter Flora´s `growth to limits´ theses, due to the ongoing increase of total financing and the melting off of the public share `private growth and public limits´ might be a future trend in the financing dimension of health care systems. The few data available on ser-vice provision, in contrast, show neither signs of retreat of the state nor of convergence. In the regulation dimension - which we analyse by picking major health system reforms in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States - we see the introduction or strengthening of those coordination mechanisms (hierarchy, markets and self-regulation) which were traditionally weak in the respective type of health care system. `Gate-keeping´ and DRG models are remarkable examples to show that health policy might increasingly be oriented at `best practices´ even when the respective solutions are beyond the traditional path of reforms. Putting these findings together we find a ten-dency of convergence from distinct types towards mixed types of health care systems. - --