zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades

This thesis would not have been possible without the help and support of many people. First of all, I want to express my special gratitude to my thesis supervisor, co-author, and mentor Profes-sor Jörg Baten. He always encouraged me to carry out my research and teaching independently and gave very helpful advice. I appreciated very much his continuous and altruistic support as well as his encouragement to present my work at international conferences and the possibility to network with researchers from abroad. I would also like to express my thanks to Professor Preusse for his willingness review this work as co-examiner for the thesis. I thank heartily my colleagues of the research group Tübingen for a congenial and supportive work environment, namely Dominic Behle, Mojgan Stegl, Dorothee Crayen, Kirsten Jäger, Normann Müller, Linda Twrdek, Yvonne Stolz, and Valeria Prayon. They have always been on my side with their experience, constructive criticism, and ideas. Marc Bégin, Erica Sanders, and Martin Weiss deserve special thanks for improving the English style. Financial support of the European Science Foundation for my research stays at the Instituto de Ciencias Sociais in Lisbon and the University Carlos III in Madrid, allowed rapid progress and new insights in the topic. I am especially grateful to the economic history team at the Carlos II