Hans-Werner Sinn, born in Brake, Germany, in 1948. Ph.D. from Universität Mannheim. Professor of Economics and Public Finance at Universität München. President of Ifo Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, München.
Jelle Zijlstra Professorial Fellow (1 February 2006 – 30 June 2006)
THE WELFARE STATE AND THE FORCES OF GLOBALIZATION
While at NIAS I have worked exclusively on the English version of my book Can Germany be Saved? The malaise of the world’s first welfare state. This book, which I consider the opus magnum of my life, came out in German first and has attracted much attention in Germany with more than 100.000 copies sold. At NIAS I prepared an English version. The English version is not a plain translation, but a new book that takes account of the particular interests and pre-knowledge of an international audience. Parts of the book have been eliminated, because they were too detailed. Other parts have been added to give further background information. The book is very empirical with lots of data. Thus virtually all graphs and figures in the book required updating. Moreover, the book had to be adjusted to encompass the political developments that have taken place since Angela Merkel took office. The theme of the book is the conflict between the welfare state and the forces of globalization. In nine chapters ranging from outsourcing to demography, the European constitution and migration, the various facets of this theme are discussed, hoping that the book’s insights will not only be useful for Germany but also for other welfare states. The English version will appear in Spring 2007 with MIT Press