Horst Siebert, born in Neuwied, Germany, in 1938. Ph.D. from Universität Münster. Professor Emeritus at the Institut für Weltwirtschaft, Kiel, and AGIP Chair in International Economics at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
Jelle Zijlstra Professorial Fellow (1 September 2004 – 31 January 2005)
STRUCTURAL REFORMS OF THE GERMAN SOCIAL MARKET ECONOMY
My research at NIAS consisted of analysing the structural weaknesses of the German Social Market Economy and of discussing the reforms that are needed to get the German economic engine going again. Specific issues that I looked at were the necessary changes within the German social security system and the labour market, but also the capital market, the institutional set-up of co-determination and the consensus approach.
A major task during the time at NIAS was to work, control and update the translation (prepared by the publisher) of my book The German Economy. Beyond the Social Market (Princeton University Press, January 2005). I also had to incorporate new data into the German text, which was a formidable task. The German book will appear in mid-March.
Besides the book on Germany and papers on the failure of the German labour market and on immigration, other research issues included international topics such as an essay on TAFTA, the concept of a Transatlantic Free Trade Association, and a paper on locational competition between countries for the mobile factors of production. I also wrote several newspaper articles during my stay and gave several talks, including the Jelle Zijlstra Lecture at the Free University, Amsterdam.