There is a nationwide epidemic among nurses who leave their profession because they report feelings of exhaustion and say they are unable to deliver quality care to patients. Burnout is the term often used, and the concept of burnout has attracted considerable attention in the field of nursing. Maslach, one of the first researchers to begin investigating burnout, described it as “a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who work with people in some capacity” (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996, p. 4). Individuals working in the human service professions are particularly at risk for developing burnout as a result of an emotionally draining occupation (Maslach, 1982).
The nursing profession is a highly stressful occupation (AbuAlRub, 2004; Balevre, 2001; Foxall, Zimmerman, Standley, & Captain, 1990; Hall, 2004; Hillhouse & Alder, 1997; McAbee, 1991; Robinson, Clements, & Land, 2003; Tyler & Ellison, 1994), and when an individual experiences stress over an extended period of time in combination with ineffective coping, it can also lead to burnout (Maslach & Leiter, 1997). Work-related stress is a widespread problem (Stanks, 2005) and has been shown to be costly to both individuals and organizations. Related personal dysfunctions include physical exhaustion, insomnia, substance abuse, and interpersonal problems (Baba, Galperin, & Lituchy, 1999; Farrington, 1995).
In his classic work, Knight (1921) pointed out an important difference between uncertainty and risk, where risk is characterized by randomness that can be measured precisely. Ellsberg (1961) proposed a more precise definition of uncertainty, in which an event is uncertain or ambiguous if it has unknown probability. Ellsberg’s paradox illustrates important consequences of this distinction by showing that individuals may prefer gambles with precise probabilities to gambles with unknown odds.
In November 1989 the opening of the border between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic initiated a rapid process of political and economic unification which took place in 1990. Immediately after wards East Germany faced a breakdown of production and employment, but since 1991 a fast catching up of income began. Later on the convergence process faded out. Since 1996/1997, the growth rates of the East German economy are no longer higher than those of West Germany, despite enormous capital investment and massive help from the Federal Government. Recently the overall wage differential between East and West Germany amounts to about 25 percent, the productivity gap is about 1/3, unit labour costs are high, and unemployment is increasing.
This paper asks for the sources of the persisting East-West income differences. On the one hand, those differences could be related to the general economic conditions in East Germany, e.g. private and public capital accumulation, technological back wardness, infrastructure equipment or inappropriate economic institutions. On the other hand, those differences could be related to the people living and working there. One could think of differences of human capital equipment of the workers or, more general, of the inappropriateness of the qualification of the East German employees for the labour market conditions of a competitive market system. Basically we ask whether income differences are related to the location or to the people.
