Roadblocks to the Socialist Modernization Path and Transition

Jutta Günther is Professor of Economics at the University of Bremen.Dagmara Jajeśniak-Quast is Professor of Economics at the European University Viadrina.Udo Ludwig is a Researcher at the Halle Institute for Economic Research and an Emeritus Honorary Professor at Leipzig University.Hans-Jürgen Wagener is an Emeritus Professor at the European University Viadrina.

• 1. Introduction.- 2. From East to West: Modernization efforts in the northern and western regions of Poland (1944-1989).- 3. The importance of technical progress for economic growth in the GDR .- 4. Inefficiency and intransparency in East German foreign trade.- 5. Historical Legacies of Regional Innovation Activity.- 6. Catching-up modernization: Synthetic fibre in the GDR and Poland.- 7. The re-allocation of entrepreneurial talent over the course of radical institutional change – an institutional perspective.- 8. When backwardness became an advantage: Stays abroad as birth assist in Polish transformation.- 9. Transfer of knowledge from the outside or self-learning? Key success criteria for setting-up enterprises in East Germany and Poland after 1989.- 10. GDR’s researchers catching up on their inclusion in international scientific communities.- 11. After 1989: Socialist elites and post-socialist transformations.