Discuss below:
When Germany was reunited after the Berlin wall fell, two dramatically different social, economic, and political systems were merged. Public debt had been treated very differently in the two Germanys, and this became increasingly important as the adoption of the European common currency (the Euro) loomed (various treaty clauses required countries to manage their debt carefully to be allowed to be part of the first group of countries to adopt the new currency). In the data below (also found in file PUBDEBT), the public debt (including states and localities within them) is given for each of the German states in 1991 and in 1996. The variables are: STATE State name (note that Bremen, Hamburg, and Berlin are states as well as being cities) EAST 1 if formerly a state in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), 0 if formerly part of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany); note that Berlin was part eastern and part western; its value is "missing" for this variable DEBT 1991 Public debt in 1991 in Deutschmarks per inhabitant DEBT 1996 Public debt in 1996 in Deutschmarks per inhabitant.
|
Bremen
|
0
|
22334
|
24547
|
|
|
Hamburg
|
0
|
11425
|
16385
|
|
|
Saar
|
0
|
13745
|
14516
|
|
|
Berlin
|
|
4543
|
14043
|
|
|
Schleswig-Holstein
|
0
|
8707
|
11193
|
|
|
North Rhine-Westfalia
|
0
|
8284
|
9974
|
|
|
Lower Saxony
|
0
|
7780
|
9905
|
|
|
Rhineland-Palatinate
|
0
|
7615
|
9487
|
|
|
Hessen
|
0
|
7591
|
9120
|
|
|
Brandenburg
|
1
|
815
|
8869
|
|
|
Saxony-Anhalt
|
1
|
733
|
8803
|
|
|
Thuringia
|
1
|
861
|
7837
|
|
|
Mecklenburg-Pomerania
|
1
|
684
|
7317
|
|
|
Baden-Wuerttemberg
|
0
|
544
|
6517
|
|
|
Saxony
|
1
|
748
|
5834
|
|
|
Bavaria
|
0
|
3900
|
4584
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|