Abstract
THIS ISSUE of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity contains papers
and discussions presented at the fifty-first conference of the Brookings
Panel on Economic Activity, which was held in Washington, D.C., on
April 4 and 5, 1991. The first paper analyzes the impact of currency
union on the economy of East Germany and presents a wage subsidy
proposal for East German industry. The second models the convergence
of per capita income and output across U.S. states and European
regions. The third employs household survey evidence to study the
decline in economywide private saving. The fourth paper compares the
U.S. banking system with the systems in Germany, Japan, and the
United Kingdom. A shorter report looks at the connection between
Japanese keiretsu and foreign trade.
