At last, the single best book on German economic unification—in any language—is available in English. German unification is replete with implications for Eastern Europe's transition to the market, Western Europe's monetary union project, and the future of the industrial world. No one has succeeded like Sinn and Sinn is drawing them out.
Barry Eichengreen, Professor of Economics, University of California
The authors offer a penetrating economic analysis of German reunification policy and its failings, together with a novel prescription for success. This is must reading for all concerned with this perplexing problem.
Richard A. Musgrave, H.H. Burbank Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus, Harvard University
This book gives an excellent summary of the facts and a penetrating analysis of the mistakes in policy...it is written in a way which is accessible to non-economists, and which may well provoke many of them to think harder about the issue it raises. I know of no other books, in English or German, which set out the issues so comprehensively and systematically and subject them to such careful analysis.
Ray Rees, Professor of Economics, University of Guelph
The book is indeed an authoritative, closely reasoned and fascinating survey of the economic problems of German unification. It is bound to be one of the basic references in the German unification debate...The book is not only original, but probably the only one of its kind at the present time.
Jurg Niehans, University of California
Even with the most auispicious conditions, East German transition has been a tramatic experiment. This important book by Sinn & Sinn is the most detailed, professional treatment of the hurdles in the way of success and of the strategies that make favorable outcomes more likely—a must reading for students of transition and for those interested in the economic prospects of Germany.
Rudiger Dornbusch, Professor of Economics, MIT
Jumpstart represents the most authoritative and well-researched analysis of German unification to date. The authors present a lucid and cogent assessment of present and future prospects in East Germany, and their sometimes controversial policy recommendations are based on sound economic reasoning rather than legal of political considerations. German policymakers who ignore the message of this book do so at their own peril.
Michael C. Burda, Associate Professor of Economics, INSEAD
