Approach to Research
- The scientific work the German Economic Institute is independent, solution-oriented and socially relevant, methodologically open and interdisciplinary.
- Believing diversity and competition to facilitate progress in the sciences, we exclude no theoretical or methodological approach. Progress does not come from insisting on a certain methodology or paradigm. The critical question is whether, and how, a scientific approach moves us forward in our search for practically applicable knowledge.Our statements are based on sound theory and - where methodologically and empirically possible – firm evidence. Our instruments include both modern methods of empirical, economic and social research and in-depth analyses of the institutional and politological determinants of economic developments.
Our research does not restrict itself to economics but is also open to, and relevant for, the debates and discoveries of other disciplines, such as ethics, history, education, political science, psychology, law and sociology.
- Our research is fully conscious of its normative conditionality. No science of human social behaviour can avoid a normative clarification of its view of man. Freedom and responsibility are for us the central values.
- We view humans as beings capable of living free and responsible lives and having a corresponding ability to decide and act for themselves. We understand responsibility in a broad sense: as an individual’s own responsibility for his or her actions and omissions and, in the public sphere, as a joint responsibility reflecting a ”general sense of common interest” (David Hume).
- In our understanding, open, free and democratic societies require a liberal and competitive economic order, whose constitutive elements include this responsibility both for oneself and for society.
