How to improve the quality of life in peripheral and lagging regions by policy measures? Examining the effects of two different policies in Germany

Peripheral regions commonly appear to be less attractive to live in and policymakers all over the world are applying various measures to make them more attractive. This paper analyzes the effects of two very different measures: The German municipal fiscal equalization scheme and the German structural funds for economically weak areas (GRW). It focusses on the impact on perceived quality of life, measured through interregional migration between German labor market regions. Using a spatial vector autoregressive panel model, we find evidence that equalization transfers have a significant positive impact on regional net migration and contribute to the aim of regional equity. These effects are especially found for regions with low endogenous fiscal capacities. GRW funding reveals no significant effects on net migration rates in total, but short-term effects in rural regions.     

The History of Knowledge and the Future of Knowledge Societies

The new field of the history of knowledge is often presented as a mere expansion of the history of science. We argue that it has a greater ambition. The re‐definition of the historiographical domain of the history of knowledge urges us to ask new questions about the boundaries, hierarchies, and mutual constitution of different types of knowledge as well as the role and assessment of failure and ignorance in making knowledge. These issues have pertinence in the current climate where expertise is increasingly questioned and authority seems to lose its ground. Illustrated with examples from recent historiography of the sixteenth to twentieth centuries, we indicate some fruitful new avenues for research in the history of knowledge. Taken together, we hope that they will show that the history of knowledge could build the expertise required by the challenges of twenty‐first century knowledge societies, just like the history of science, throughout its development as a discipline in the twentieth century, responded to the demands posed by science and society.     

Reviews

Gro Mandt Larsen: Bergbilder i Hordaland. En unders?kelse av bildenes sam‐mensetning, deres naturmilj? og kulturmilj? (Rock pictures in Hordaland. An analysis of the composition of the pictures and of their ecological and cultural background). Årbok for Universitetet i Bergen. Hum. Serie 1970, No. 2. Bergen 1972. 158 pp. 73 Pl. 6 Maps. English summary     

The oldest evidence of painted furniture from Sweden – The 12th century chair from Suntak

The 12th century Suntak chair is one of the earliest pieces of furniture known from Sweden. A close examination revealed minute remnants of possible colour pigments on several parts of the chair. Chemical analyses of the pigments revealed the presence of several colours such as black, white and red. This paper attempts to shed light upon the identification and origin of the pigments as well as the time of painting. The original use and the setting of the chair will also be discussed.     

High‐Resolution 3D Marine Seismic Investigation of Hedeby Harbour,Germany

Offshore 3D‐seismic acquisition has been a standard for high‐precision structural imaging in the oil and gas industry for many years. Recently this technique has been adapted by only a few teams to the resolution required for archaeological marine investigation. In contrast to sonar techniques, the 3D‐seismic method produces images below the sea‐floor. We investigate the harbour of the Viking age proto‐town of Hedeby in Northern Germany with the SEAMAP‐3D system. SEAMAP‐3D allows for rapid acquisition and employs an automated data processing sequence. We observe a wealth of archaeologically relevant detail and compare our results with previous work.