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Copyright of Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

How did the Japanese government defend its postwar capital controls against foreign criticism within the wider discourse surrounding the liberalization of cross-border capital f lows? This paper argues that it was relying on the so-called "balance of payments rationale," a rhetoric linking the annual in- and outf lows of foreign money to current and future states of the national economy, to justify its continued application of foreign capital import controls between 1950 and 1967. It traces how legal, diplomatic, and economic conditions enabled the balance of payments rationale to assume this role. As the control of capital imports was an important element of Japan's postwar industrial policy, maintaining it was deemed essential for the country's economic development. Thus, the initial conditions of the capital liberalization discourse coupled with the effective use of the balance of payments rationale enabled the Japanese government to retain this important industrial policy tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of ifo Dresden Berichtet: Ueber Konjunktur, Struktur, Wirtschaftspolitik is the property of ifo Institute for Economic Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Der Moderne Staat is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The objective of the paper is to bring up again the important issue – the fact that the academic staff, researchers and support staff of universities have low salaries in Estonia and their work is not highly valued or appreciated in the society, and to assess the situation. Unless changes are made soon in this area, qualified persons will gradually move from universities and establishments of higher education to other areas/sectors of national economy (some of them probably also to other countries) and the quality, competitiveness and standards of teaching and research activities will decline. Development of the whole Estonian national economy would suffer. This is the opinion of both the heads of the universities and many practical experts of the economy who are familiar with the situation. The research tasks of the paper are: to identify and highlight positions on the problem of salaries in Estonian higher education; to present, study and assess salary levels in Estonia; to examine the positions of Estonian politicians in the issue of salaries; to draw conclusions. Instead of theoretical thoughts/positions and comparisons between them and their synthesis, the author of the paper above all relies on practical opinions and the required trends/changes arising from them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Der Moderne Staat is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study presented in this paper reviews the emergence and development of Hungarian economic and legal terminology. It is based on research during which I examined over 1 000 terms from their first publication in specialized dictionaries, through changes in their meaning, all the way to their integration into technical vocabulary or their extinction. My research also focused on the reasons why the colloquial meaning of a term may cause the disappearance of its technical meaning. I conclude my study with examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Volkswagen's success has generated both admiration and criticism. As such, the enterprise shines a light on the Federal Republic of Germany's global position as an export nation. By examining the company's presence in the USA and Mexico and its sustained efforts to become a leading global automaker since the early 1990s, the paper asks to what extent Volkswagen's international conduct has been shaped by the norms of self-restraint and moderation that define Germany's diplomatic style. That an economic actor like Volkswagen repeatedly diverged from these official diplomatic codes by pursuing its interests and provoking conflict underlines the importance of economic power in shaping Germany's image abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Gold Frontier in South Africa. This paper uses the concept of commodity frontiers to compare the expansions and contractions of the South African gold frontier. Similarities and differences to its counterparts in the USA or Australia become visible in the South African gold frontier's rapid industrialization, massive exploitation of low-skilled workers and tremendous damage to the natural environment. In addition to these regional factors, the approach also shows to what extent the gold economy has its own specific functional interrelations. Finally, the study also demonstrates how global changes and local dynamics can interact in very different and sometimes unexpected ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since the origin of the global economic crisis 2007 ff., the political debate, along with the contemporary analysis of society, centre around an ongoing discourse that is deeply affected by said crisis. It is within this context that the critique of capitalism saw a renaissance in social studies. This paper suggests to not look separately at the economic, ecological and political crises, but rather regard them as a sign that points out the proneness to crisis of capitalism as society's regulative framework. At first, we will be covering texts that deal with the relation between the capitalistic economy and politics. Afterwards, the topics of financialisation, inequality, (post-)growth and democracy will be discussed. Our aim here is to show that this newly arisen critique of capitalism is, and has to be, the very core of a modern critique of society itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent decades have seen the rise of neoliberal interpretations in the economic history of capitalism, development and economic growth. Free trade and free markets are said to have been the epitome of good economic development, whilst protectionism and mercantilism are seen as the antinomy of economic modernity. The economic historyofearlymodernEurope,including processesofglobaleconomic divergence have often been written accordingly. The present paper, whilst not laying any judgemental claims to the right or wrongs of neoliberalism, wishes to tracethe influence of neoliberal philosophy on writing early modern economic histories and the history of capitalism. It studies some of its most obvious implications, including Eurocentrism, economic determinism and the new historical materialism inherent in cliometrics and the New Economic History as it emerged in the 1960 s and 1970 s in the West. The first section surveys broad trends in writing „neoliberal“ economic histories in the last forty years. The second section discusses three concrete examples, namely the contribution of Martin Luther to the modern economic mind, the positive contributions of protectionism and regulation to the making of European capitalism and modern economic growth during the centuries of capitalism’s ascendancy in late medieval and early modern Europe, as well as the contribution of early modern economic ideas and theories – namely cameralism and mercantilism – to the modern economic mind. They all runagainstthe neoliberalparadigmbutoffer, by waysofhistorical empiricism,ways and means of overcoming this paradigm. A third section offers possibilities of refocusing and re-interpreting the economic history of early modern Europe through a post-neoliberal lens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Der Moderne Staat is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Foreign direct investment (hereinafter referred to as FDI) are an important segment of economic-financial activity in the national economy. Being so important they deserve special attention from the politicians as well as an analytical review in scientific terms. FDIare one of the key factors for promoting the country's sustainable economicdevelopment. They have economic and financial impact, but their legal aspect is also very important. This paper elaborates the concept of foreign direct investment, their impact on the national economy and the legal basis of foreign direct investment. As an analytical case is used the Republic of Kosovo, whose institutions are creating policies and are adopting laws for an appropriate environment that affects the attraction of foreign investors and investments. The focus of this paper is the analysis of the concept of FDI, the legal infrastructure, the factors that impact the attraction of investments, and their role in the economic development of the country. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role and importance of FDIfor national economic development as well as the legal security of investments in the Republic of Kosovo. In the elaboration of the paper was used the literature of foreign authors, statistical reports of local and international institutions as well as local legislation dealing withthe regulation of this issue. The main methods used are descriptive methods, methods of analysis and synthesis, statistical methods, legal methods and comparative methods.

Innovation is the key to sustainable growth, development and competitiveness, and also the engine of the economic clusters. Nowadays innovative processes are conducted within clusters where each component plays its own strategic role at the highest rate of specialisation. The development of the clusters relies on the cooperation between companies, universities and R&D institutions and local, regional or national authorities. First of all, a cluster emerges due to the spatial proximity of businesses, but the real motivation consists in the need for cooperation; the effect, along with the rational use of resources and the activities’ specialisation, relies in the enhancement of competition, a positive outcome for the economic environment. Within a cluster, the partners share resources and develop future strategies; the mostly known positive outcomes are the specialised labour force, products of higher quality, cost reductions, powerful networks of suppliers and clients, etc. In our paper we aim to assess the cluster phenomenon in Romania and we seek to determine the catalysts for the emergence of the cluster partnerships in Romania. Our approach is bidirectional: firstly we assess a correlation between the economic clusters, as a cause, and as effects, the number of working persons, unemployed persons and recorded turnovers of the regional businesses where the clusters exists; secondly, we analyse the presence of clusters in the selected regions as an effect caused by the size of the active labour force, unemployed persons, number of higher education institutions, population of 25-39 years old, working specialists and technicians and lastly, the recorded turnover, in our opinion, all these six factors being the most relevant for the development of clusters. We considered suitable for our statistical approach to calculate the Pearson coefficient and also to apply the ANOVA method being able to assess also the extent of each factor’s influence on the development of the Romanian clusters. In the last part of this paper the findings are tested by using the Student’s and Fisher’s tests.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the position of capital city and capital city region in Estonia. An analysis of the position of the capital city in the local self-government organisation of a country must consider the following four aspects: 1. The capital city in the system of human settlements. 2. The capital city and the national legal environment, including the capital city's relationship with the central government and regional co-operation. 3. Management models of the capital city, including decentralisation. 4. The economic environment in the capital city; the capital city and the economic environment of the region and the country. The author is of the opinion that there are practically no interdisciplinary analyses addressing legal, economic, and demographic and management problems of capital city in Estonia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of the paper is the US investment and development assistance policy for Kenya in the second decade of the 21st century. The first section of the paper discusses the investments of American enterprises in Kenya, as well as the programs of the governments of Kenya and the US, which are to improve investment conditions in this country. The second section discusses the development support provided by the US government agencies for Kenya and its residents. The main research questions are whether the level of US investment and development support was significant, and what are the prospects for cooperation in these areas in the future? The main thesis of the paper assumes that in the past decade investment and development cooperation between the US and Kenya was at a relatively high level, but its possibilities are much greater. In the coming years, Kenya might increase its position as one of the most important US economic partners in Africa, including in investment and development assistance.

The paper calls for a reconceptualization of pre-classical political economy and economic thought and its role in long-term growth and Europe's transition towards industrialization, c. 1350-1900. The focus will be on German Cameralism and its imputed characteristic as a Sonderweg doctrine. The Sonderweg hypothesis will be refuted. Cameralism was neither specifically German (it was a pan-European doctrine), nor in any way an aberration in the evolution of modern economic thought. And it contained key elements that would make, if applied wisely, for an effective economic transition from agrarian low-growth economies to more productive industrial economies based on manufacturing. It thus was the origin and pre-runner of modern economic doctrine(s). One key element however, that has been understudied in recent years, and which is the focus of the present article, is the strong notion in Cameralist economics on order in the market place and how a secure framework of property rights could be achieved that was apt to effect such transitions noted above. This can be shown using a focus on the monetary theory of the Cameralists. Far from following a traditionalist 'Scholastic' or worse, dirigiste, stance, the German economic thinkers developed a quite idiosyncratic set of ideas how money should be managed so as to achieve stability in domestic economy and society, as well as the potential for long-term growth. There were three areas or topics in particular around which these theories of order evolved, sometimes conflicting: first by the command for a stable currency (measured in terms of the precious metal content of the coins), second the call for currency debasement in those cases where this would help the domestic economy become more competitive, and thirdly, by increasing money's speed of circulation as a means to achieve economic expansion. These ideas have a long history that sometimes goes back to the Middle Ages. But their longevity is proven in some continuities to be found in twentieth- century economic thought so that it may be said with some justification that Cameralist economics - or 'economic reason of state' theory - laid the basis for Europe's long way towards the industrial revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Politik is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper presents a historical commentary on arguments in theory of property that reinforce the vision of strong and clear property rights dominant in developmental policy today. Building upon the article from Duncan Kennedy in 2013 that analyses this vision, this paper tackles additional issues in emergence of the vision. In doing that the paper relies on broadly genealogical approach to focus on a binary opposition that has been present in the theory of property almost since its historical establishment in Western thought. This methodology allows us to conceptualize the problem in more substantive terms than Kennedy does and show how radical shift is necessary to overcome the problems that the vision entails.

Copyright of Zeitschrift fur Wirtschaftspolitik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Emigration flows and their relations with economic development can be observed through different aspects, where one of the important questions is the role of the remittances, and transfer of foreign money to home countries. The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of remittances on economic development in Central and Eastern European countries. A review of previous research on the role of emigration and the impact of remittances on economic development is presented in the first part of the paper. This is followed by panel data analysis. The analysis covers the period after the enlargement of the European Union (EU) in 2004 till the nowadays. The results confirm the positive and statistically significant influence of personal remittances on the economic development of the new EU member states, as well as the positive and statistically significant influence of final consumption, gross fixed capital formation, external trade balance, and foreign direct investments. The positive influence of remittances on economic development should be observed with caution, regarding that remittances are the results of emigration and also are connected with the unfavourable effects of emigration. This study adds to previous research about the significance of remittances in the economies of the new EU member states.

Copyright of Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article offers information on the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economic development of the Germany. It mentions the challenges to Dutch travelers, harvest workers, seasonal labor migration in agriculture amid the pandemic. It discusses the consequences associated with the seasonal labor migration in agriculture.

Copyright of Revista de Economía Institucional is the property of Universidad Externado de Colombia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Haushalt in Bildung & Forschung is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The wars of 1792-1815 constituted the last and biggest military conflict in pre-modern Europe. This essay reviews the available evidence concerning their economic impact on the German lands. Given the low level of fiscal development there, taxes and capital markets were of limited relevance for the mobilization of resources for war-related purposes relative to requisitions and exactions on the spot. Adverse effects of the wars on the aggregate economy in the short run were limited, and post-war reconstruction was achieved within a half-decade. The 1810s also saw the transition from a Malthusian disequilibrium to a post-Malthusian regime, which raises the question of whether the wars produced institutional shocks favouring economic development in the long run. The available evidence supports the view that links the increase of the state size, which resulted from the wars, with Smithian growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last several decades, the Chinese economic development has led to various environmental problems. The resultant high national health expenditures and economic risks have recently brought about a change in China's environmental and energy policy. However, it remains questionable if the country will be able to master the balancing act between the environmental challenges and the economic and social stability. Due to the great importance of china as a trading partner, the policy change may cause significant impacts on German companies operating in and with China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study reviews evidence produced with different methods to track output and productivity in agriculture during the pre-statistical era and derives a characterization of the long-term evolution of the agricultural sector in Germany during the threeand- a-half centuries prior to the transition to modern economic growth. The three methods are: (1) An indirect estimation of agricultural output using a consumption function; (2) returns from tithes and sharecropping as proxies for grain production; and (3) an estimate of total factor productivity (TFP) using product prices and rents of input factors. Yield ratios and a TFP estimate for four estates in Westphalia suggest stagnant productivity during the seventeenth and eighteenth century in most parts of Germany. Feeding an expanding population thus required more intensive cultivation of land at a declining marginal product of labour, testified by a rising rent-wage ratio and an expansion of the arable. Regions situated in the neighbourhood of proto-industrial were exceptions to this general picture: at least from c. 1740 output grew in line with population there, and output per agricultural worker rose. Nevertheless, the effects of demand from proto-industrial workers on agricultural growth was weaker compared to effect of expanding urban populations in north-western Europe. Only the emergence of modern industry from the 1830s set a strong stimulus to agricultural modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beyond the Production-Consumption Divide. Conceptual Tools for the Analysis of Modes and Processes of Provision. Within historical as well as sociological research a gulf exists between the study of matters of production, marketing and distribution on the one hand and questions of consumption and the use of goods in social practices on the other hand. Developing theoretical frameworks and methodologies that cut across this divide remains an ongoing challenge. This article considers different conceptual frameworks that open up an institutional perspective on the social and economic organization of production and consumption. Offering a close examination, in particular, of the mode of provision-approach through comparison with antecedent perspectives such as Polanyi's conceptual scheme for studying the substantive economy, this article refines these tools and outlines their possible applications within empirical and historical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few nortifications dating from before the mid-ninth century are known in those parts of the northern West Slavic region that are distant from the coast, extending from Brandenburg through Northern Silesia, Wielkopolska and Central Poland to Mazovia. In these central settlement areas, widespread construction of castles only began a few centuries later than in the hinterland of the southern Baltic coast and the foothills of the Western Carpathians and Sudetes. There, fortifications with large surface areas, some of them comprising multiple components, started to be built as early as the second half of the eighth century. Early castle-building in these regions can most likely be attributed to external factors (the threat posed by the Kingdom of the Franks and the growing threat from the Avars). In addition, economic development in the areas between Eastern Holstein and Eastern Pomerania was rapid, particularly on account of the sea-trading settlements that were being established on the Baltic coast, linked to long-distance trading routes. Inland landscapes on the middle reaches of the Oder, the Warta and the central Vistula developed quite differently; the social and economic progress of the Slavs who arrived in the seventh century was far slower. Farming was largely for subsistence purposes, while the material culture was modest; in areas that were still sparsely populated and not exposed to external dangers, to supraregional trading or to influences that promoted economic and cultural development, the inhabitants of settlements which were presumably still entirely independent of overlords or at most had only weak hierarchical structures lived in a self-governing manner in unfortified rural settlements – there was neither any need to build castles nor any basis for doing so. Only from the mid-ninth century were fortifications extensively built in the northern West Slavic region – mostly small concentric castles. These existed in particularly large numbers in Lusatia, the Berlin area, Lower Silesia, Wielkopolska and northern Mazovia, but also on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. Generally speaking, the small, massively fortified concentric castles, with buildings on their periphery, are assumed to have served the needs of territorial rulers, and most are interpreted as the seats of a Slavic elite. In northern Lower Silesia, the region on the middle reaches of the Oder, there are around 40 castles which can be assigned to the Middle Slavic period, more precisely to the 9th and 10th centuries. Particularly in the past 30 years, many of them have been investigated archaeologically. In addition to important findings about their layout and fortification, the occupation of their interiors and the material culture, it has been possible to obtain dendrodates from a number of castles, enabling them to be dated with precision. The article draws on key findings from research at small concentric castles in northern Lower Silesia to describe their general characteristics, including with regard to castle mounds outside the specific area under consideration, after which the historical background and the functions of the castles are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Aussen- und Sicherheitspolitik is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines financial aid for companies and the guidelines of subsidy policy in East Germany after 1989 in the context of German structural policy in the "Helmut Kohl era" (1982-1998). It comes to the conclusion that -- after a short period of fast structural change in East Germany -- efforts increased to rescue existing businesses and industrial sites, as well as the jobs they provided after the end of 1992, primarily through the initiative of regional actors. Financial aid for companies -- particularly for funding industrial investments in modernisation and new plants -- played a key role in the rescuing and restructuring process. At the same time, structural policy gradually converged with the patterns that had been formed during the political management of structural change in the "former" Federal Republic. Only the short period of the postreunification years 1991 and 1992 was characterised by the steering of structural change and the redefinition of East German industry by the markets as well as by a renunciation of subsidies for the preservation of existing jobs. The temporary retreat of the state from structural policy was partly a result of the experience of the 1980s, when structural policy was criticized for slowing down German economic growth and impeding structural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the position of capital city and capital city region in Estonia. An analysis of the position of the capital city in the local self-government organisation of a country must consider the following four aspects: 1. The capital city in the system of human settlements. 2. The capital city and the national legal environment, including the capital city’s relationship with the central government and regional co-operation. 3. Management models of the capital city, including decentralisation. 4. The economic environment in the capital city; the capital city and the economic environment of the region and the country. The author is of the opinion that there are practically no interdisciplinary analyses addressing legal, economic, and demographic and management problems of capital city in Estonia.

The organization of regional innovation systems is mostly complex and results not only from specific conditions on-site, but also from networking activities of individual actors. In this respect, economic development agencies play a key role, particularly as their responsibilities normally include the initiation and support of innovation processes. In order to ensure this, economic development agencies in practice often enter into joint collaboration with special innovation consultants. These actors are strongly interlinked with potential innovation partners enabling them to support innovation processes, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises. Due to this network capability, economists have established the role model of the relationship promotor which is in the focus of this paper. Taking the example of three regions in Northwest Germany, we analyze the function of economic development agencies and innovation consultants as relationship promotors and their specific strategies affecting the configuration of different innovation systems. It will be shown that the three regions – district of Oldenburg, Oldenburger Münsterland, Elbe-Weser region – adopt different strategies varying in terms of territorial dimension, range of actors and degree of networking. Basically, the configuration of regional innovation systems to a large extent depends on various sources of power of the operating promotors. Apart from three typical sources of power which can be found in the literature – social competence, networking knowledge, relationship patterns – the empirical analysis also reveals the reputation of relationship promotors as additional factor of being able to exert influence.