Labor Economics in Germany: Retrospect and Contemporary State Knut Gerlach and Wolfgang Meyer* 1. <...> Contemporary labor economics in Germany 4.1 Key institutions of labor research 4.2. <...> Introduction In this article a brief overview of labor economics in Germany is presented. <...> The starting point is the divergent development of labor economics in Germany and the Anglo-American countries. <...> The key actors of labor research are presented, data and methods briefl y © Герлах К. и Мейер В., 2006 * We would like to thank Olaf Huebler for his helpful comments. discussed and the outstanding contemporary research areas are outlined. <...> In the AngloAmerican countries and in Germany this situation was discussed under the term Social Problem or, more specifi cally, in Germany using the concept Social Question (Soziale Frage). <...> Interestingly, in the AngloAmerican countries the term Social Problem was rapidly displaced by the more narrowly defi ned concept Labor Problem or Labor Question (Kaufman 2004, 34), while the usage of the term Social Question was retained in Germany well into the twentieth century. <...> This opened the path in the United ВЕСТНИК ВГУ, СЕРИЯ: ЭКОНОМИКА И УПРАВЛЕНИЕ, 2006, № 2 27 ЭКОНОМИКА ТРУДА States and in Britain to discuss the Labor Problem as an autonomous subject and to separate labor issues from social policy. <...> In Germany, however, the scientifi c and political debate of the problems of labor and capital continued to be attached to the Social Question with the consequence that an autonomous fi eld devoted to economic labor problems was much harder to establish, since it appeared too restrictive and too supportive of the economic and political status quo. <...> On the one hand, Bismarck’s attempt to solve or mitigate the Social Question by social insurance laws (health insurance (1883), accident insurance (1884), old-age pensions (1889)) and by severely restricting activities of the Social Democratic Party and the unions. <...> On the other hand, the leading German academic economists of the historical school were very much afraid that the Social Question might endanger the unifi ed German states (1871) and wanted to contribute to solving the Social Question. <...> In 1873 the German economists of the historical school founded the Society for Social Policy (Verein fьr Socialpolitik <...>