Economic structure

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Under the economic structure is understood in economic theory , the ratio of individual economic sectors to each other and to the economy of a region or a state .

General

Structure in this context is the division ( disaggregation ) of an overall size into partial sizes that are inherently more homogeneous than the overall size. Economic structure is in accordance with the division of the total size of " economy " in portion sizes of the production side . The economic structure is broken down into branches and sectors and their related internal ( intrasectoral ) and external ( intersectoral ) interdependence.

In classical foreign trade theory, the international economic structure is the result of comparative advantages . In the EU member states and in Germany, the economic structure is characterized by agglomeration and peripheral regions.

Classic economic structure

The classic economic structure comes largely from Colin Clark , who in 1940 divided the economy into three sectors, namely agriculture / fishing / forestry with decreasing income ( primary sector , land-intensive ; in the broader sense, mining today ), industry with increasing income ( secondary sector ; capital-intensive ) and services ( tertiary sector , residual sector ; labor , personnel or knowledge intensive ). A sector is the grouping of economic subjects based on common characteristics. Correspondingly, there is agricultural production , industrial production and provision of services. Depending on which sector prevails, there are agricultural states , industrial states or service companies .

Jean Fourastié refined this three-sector hypothesis in 1949 and showed the role that technical progress plays in the individual sectors. Technical progress would lead to the "spirituality of work" because in the production technology more work preparation , organization and planning will be required. While the consumer goods industry predominates in the early stages of industrialization , according to Walther G. Hoffmann , the capital goods industries predominate in the advanced phases of industrialization . Clark called 1957 in the last edition of his book, the remaining group of economic activities ( residual sector ) no more than tertiary production, but as a "service industry" ( English service industries ) and counted also refer to the construction , transport and traffic , trade and finance , public administration and private services.

This very rough breakdown neglects the changes within the sectors and does not take into account the influence of the government quota on the economic structure.

species

A distinction must be made between sectoral and spatial economic structure. Structural policy as a whole, i.e. sectoral and regional structural policy, is an excerpt from economic policy .

Sectoral economic structure

As sectoral economic structure is called either the shares of individual sectors in the gross domestic product or the distribution of the workforce in this sector. In the sectoral economic structure, the shares of individual sectors in gross value added , the distribution of employment among the various sectors ( sectoral employment structure ) or the distribution of investments among the sectors ( sectoral investment structure ) are examined. Different economic growth in individual sectors can change the sectoral economic structure; Industrialization promotes industry and reduces agricultural production , tertiarization promotes the service society at the expense of the other sectors.

Spatial economic structure

The spatial economic structure relates to the distribution of the sectors in a geographically limited economic area . This can include an entire confederation of states (e.g. the Russian-Belarusian Union ) or confederation of states ( European Economic Area ), a single state, regions of a state ( regional economic structure , regional policy ) or the communal economic structure of a single municipality .

The EU regional policy is to take place by reducing structural disparities between regions and by promoting a balanced regional development. These are, for example, Cohesion Fund , Regional Fund , Social Fund or Structural Funds available. In Germany, the joint task of improving the regional economic structure is a joint task of the states with the federal government , which takes place according to Art. 91a GG by improving the regional economic structure. State development programs also have an impact on the economic structure. Regional structural policy can be described as the area of ​​structural policy oriented towards geographical areas. The local economic development has among other objectives, to optimize the local economic structure to the municipal taxes to stabilize or increase.

Structural change

The economic structure is not a constant , but is subject to constant change as a result of dynamic economic processes . If the economic structure changes within two comparison points in time, there is a structural change . Structural change is the "sustainable, over-cyclical change in the economic importance of the sectors as well as the number and intensity of their links".

The sectoral structural change results from the different economic growth rates of individual branches of the economy and takes place in the long term through the transformation of an agricultural state into an industrial state (industrialization) and finally through the transformation of the industrial state into a service society ( tertiarization ). The regional structural change arises from weaknesses of a region in competition with other comparable regions. In this case, the closure of a large company or military site with effects on the labor market , housing market , per capita income , subcontractors and suppliers is often the trigger for a structural crisis and the cause of structural change in the region ( communal conversion ). Industrial structural change is taking place mainly through international competition , which is characterized by cost advantages ( cost leadership ), quality projections ( quality leadership ) projections in the technology ( technology leadership ), know-how , good distribution chains , low wages in low-wage countries or tax benefits in low-tax countries or tax havens can show.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the European Union , the federal government and the states have been intervening in industrial structural change to a greater extent than in post-war history. The European Commission intervenes in the future-oriented design of economic development in order to support structurally weak regions and reduce the European economic gap.

meaning

The economic structure is an important determinant of the current account of a state. Balance of payments deficits could already exist in the unfavorable economic structure of an economy. Structural change can lead to structural unemployment and this ultimately to structural crises. State structural adjustment measures are required to correct them . Cross-sectional technologies , pacemaker technologies or key technologies have a high innovative potential and have a broad impact on the economic structure.

Demarcation

The production structure differs from the economic structure in that the former only covers the structure of production and not all economic variables.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Werner Meißner / Werner Fassing, Economic Structure and Structural Policy , 1989, p. 11 f.
  2. ↑ Annegret Groebel, Structural Development Patterns in Market and Planned Economies , 1997, p. 6
  3. ^ Society for Economic and Social Sciences, Association for Socialpolitik (ed.), State and Economy , 1979, p. 675
  4. ↑ Thorsten Feix, Spatial Economic Structure and Industrial Policy , 1996, p. 12
  5. ↑ Thorsten Feix, Spatial Economic Structure and Industrial Policy , 1996, p. V
  6. ^ Colin Clark, The conditions of economic progress , 1940, p. 492
  7. ^ Verlag Franz Vahlen (ed.), Vahlens Großes Wirtschaftslexikon , 1993, p. 2390 f.
  8. ^ Jean Fourastié, Le Grand Espoir du XXe siècle. Progrès technique, progrès économique, progrès social , 1949, p. 276 f.
  9. ↑ Walther G. Hoffmann, Industrialisierung , in: Handbuch der Sozialwissenschaften, Volume 5, 1956, pp. 224 ff.
  10. ^ Colin Clark, The conditions of economic progress , 1957, p. 375
  11. ↑ Wolfgang van Dawen, Balance and Imbalance as Terms in the Discussion of Economic Growth in Underdeveloped Countries , 1966, p. 96
  12. ↑ Verlag Dr. Th. Gabler (ed.), Gablers Wirtschaftslexikon , Volume 6, 1984, Sp. 2325
  13. ↑ Stefan Gärtner, Balanced Structural Policy: Savings Banks from a Regional Economic Perspective , 2008, p. 63
  14. ↑ Werner Meißner / Werner Fassing, Economic Structure and Structural Policy , 1989, p. 13
  15. ↑ Dirk Piekenbrock, Gabler Kompakt-Lexikon Volkswirtschaftslehre , 2009, p. 391
  16. ^ Verlag Franz Vahlen (ed.), Vahlens Großes Wirtschaftslexikon , 1993, p. 2390
  17. ↑ Annegret Groebel, Structural Development Patterns in Market and Planned Economies , 1997, p. 7
  18. ↑ Hans-Joachim Siegler, Possibilities and Problems of Input-Output-Theoretical Analyzes of Economic Structure and its Change , 1983, p. 4
  19. ↑ Dirk Piekenbrock, Gabler Kompakt-Lexikon Volkswirtschaftslehre , 2009, p. 390
  20. ↑ Wolfgang Schroeder / Bernhard Weßels, The Unions in Politics and Society in the Federal Republic of Germany , 2003, p. 429
  21. ↑ Philipp Ehmer, Economic Structure and Performance Report , 2017, p. 185
  22. ↑ Philipp Ehmer, Economic Structure and Performance Report , 2017, p. 115
  23. ↑ German Trade Union Confederation / Economic and Social Science Institute (ed.), WSI Mitteilungen , Edition 37, 1984, p. 469