Research

Focus of Research:

• history of economic development - growth and cycles
  (see also for further reading the works of Reinhard Spree)
  
  
• economic and social history of the GDR
  
  
• history of economic thought
  
  
• Historical Technology Assessment
  
  
• investigations into the history of enterprise
  
  
• Institutional and socio-economic change

Current Projects:

• "The forgotten middle-class": The development of small and medium-sized enterprises in the Saar area and the adjacent economic areas from the "Gründerkrise" to the end of the "great depression" (1873-1894/95). An economic-historical quantitive analysis of the region's critical structural transformations. This project had been supported first by the Saarland. Since its thematic and geographic extension it is supported by funds of the DFG.
  
  
• We participate in the project "The History of Luxembourg's iron and coal industry from the beginnings to its decline (1830-1975)" which is supported by the government of Luxembourg.
  
  
• Historical Technology Assessement: perception of and reaction to technology effects in the coal and steel industry of the Saarland during the "great depression".
  
  
• „Verflechtung als Europäisierung? – Wirtschaftliche, soziale und kulturelle Interdependenzbeziehungen als Konstituenten der Großregion Saar-Lor-Lux im Zeitalter der Industrialisierung“ (Gefördert durch die Arbeitskammer des Saarlandes, Oktober 2006 – September 2007)
  
  
• Arbeitsmärkte zwischen Abschottung und Transnationalität. Das Saargebiet als europäische Grenzregion (1900-1939) (Anschubfinanzierung aus Landesmitteln seit April 2009)
  
  
• Die Konjunktur- und Strukturkrisen der "langen" siebziger Jahre. Verlauf, Wahrnehmung und Bewältigung im Saarland 1966-1982 (Gefördert durch die DFG seit Oktober 2010)