Purpose

This study aims to elucidate the quantitative and qualitative differences in employment development between German districts. Building on ideas from competitive development and resource-based theory, the paper particularly seeks to explain enduring East-West differences between rural regions by two different forms of competitive advantage: cost leadership and quality differentiation.

Design/methodology/approach

This study follows a two-step empirical approach: First, an extended shift-share regression is conducted to analyze employment development in Western and Eastern German districts between 2007 and 2016. Second, the competitive share effect and other individual terms of the shift-share model are further examined in additional regressions using regional economic characteristics as exogenous variables.

Findings

The findings suggest that the above-average employment growth of the rural districts in the West is owed to the successful exploitation of experience in manufacturing that has been gathered by firms in the past 100 years or so. While their strategy is largely based on advanced and specialized resources and an innovation-driven differentiation strategy, the relatively weak employment development of Eastern rural districts might be explained by a lack of comparable long-term experiences and the related need to focus on the exploitation of basic and general resources and, accordingly, on the efficiency-based strategy of cost leadership.

Originality/value

This study offers an in-depth empirical analysis of how the competitive share effect, i.e. region-specific resources beyond industry structure, contributes to regional employment development. The analysis reveals that quantitative differences in rural employment development are closely related to qualitatively different levels of input factors and different regimes of competitiveness.

中文翻译：

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一个经济体，但不同的增长机制：为什么德国东部农村仍然落后

目的

本研究旨在阐明德国地区之间就业发展的数量和质量差异。基于竞争发展和资源基础理论的思想，本文特别试图通过两种不同形式的竞争优势来解释农村地区之间持久的东西方差异：成本领先和质量差异化。

设计/方法/途径

本研究采用两步实证方法：首先，对 2007 年至 2016 年间德国西部和东部地区的就业发展进行了扩展的转移份额回归分析。其次，转移份额的竞争份额效应和其他个别条款模型在使用区域经济特征作为外生变量的附加回归中得到进一步检验。

发现

调查结果表明，西部农村地区高于平均水平的就业增长归功于企业在过去 100 年左右积累的制造业经验的成功利用。虽然他们的战略主要基于先进的专业资源和创新驱动的差异化战略，但东部农村地区就业发展相对薄弱的原因可能是缺乏可比的长期经验以及相关的需要重点开发基本资源和一般资源，并相应地采用基于效率的成本领先战略。

原创性/价值

本研究对竞争份额效应（即超越产业结构的区域特定资源）如何促进区域就业发展提供了深入的实证分析。分析表明，农村就业发展的数量差异与投入要素的不同水平和竞争力机制的不同质量密切相关。