This book offers a fresh, innovative analysis of contemporary German economic policy, containing essays from non-Germanic, internationally distinguished economists from around the world, arguing for a more expansionary macroeconomic policy.

This book deals with the relationship between the competitiveness of countries in Europe and the analysis of macroeconomic imbalances. It focuses mainly on a European analysis, along with special studies of the German economy, which is rarely considered to be a cause for the current crisis. The book also compares Germany with Italy, providing a comparative perspective on structural reforms. The first part of this book analyses macroeconomic imbalances based on a new framework from the analysis of the flow of founds rather than balance of payments, and presents an alternative measure of unit labour cost comparisons to investigate the relationship between imbalances and competitiveness. The second part is dedicated to the analysis of the trade performance of Germany and Italy and the sustainability of the German model in the EMU. The third part describes the reform policies implemented by Germany and their effect on imbalances; this includes wage moderation, the labour market reforms and weak labour demand. The final part explores the regional inequalities within Germany and Italy, providing useful lessons regarding fiscal federalism and regional banking developments. In conclusion, a big part of the problems within the Euro Area are generated by the use of a wrong framework of analysis, where the EMU is considered as a fixed exchange rate regime and not a single country. This book provides an alternative view which holds at the core the relationship between sectors. It is stressed throughout the book that the German behaviour has contributed to the rise of imbalances between countries due to its growth model, not suitable for a big developed country in a currency union. This book also finds that stressing banking integration within countries helps to reduce regional inequalities, which has important implications for the management of Europe’s future banking union and macroeconomic imbalances.

Having the high unemployment in Germany in mind, this book discusses how macroeconomic theory has evolved over the past forty years. It shows that in recent years a convergence has taken place, with modern models embodying a Keynesian transmission mechanism, monetarist policy implication, and modeling techniques inspired by new classical economics and real business cycle theory. It also probes in which direction models may be extended from here. Empirically, the book uses different econometric techniques to investigate the relevance and implications of different macroeconomic theories for German data. A key question this book investigates is the role of demand and supply side conditions for the increase in the German unemployment rate. On a policy level, the book relates the implications of the different theories to the ongoing debate on the appropriate roles of demand and supply side policies for curing the German unemployment problem.

Since the Financial Crisis in 2008 Germany has performed economically far better than most of its neighbouring countries. What makes Germany so special that nobel prize winner Krugman called it a German miracle and is this sustainable? Is it its strong economic and political institutions, in particular trade unions, which by international comparison are a solid rock in turbulent waters, its vocational training which guarantees high skilled labour and low youth unemployment, its social partnership agreements which showed large flexibility of working time arrangements during the crisis and turned the rock into a bamboo flexibly bending once the rough wind of globalization was blowing? Or was it simply luck, booming exports to China and the East, a shrinking population, or worse so, a demolition of the German welfare state? All along from miracle to fate to shame of the German model: Is there such a thing like a core of Germany? The debate on the German model is controversial within Germany. But what do neighbours think about Germany? The Nordic countries want to copy German labor market institutions. The Western countries admire it for its high flexibility within stable institutions, the Austrians have a similar model but question Germany's welfare arrangements and growth capacities. Many Eastern European countries are relatively silent about the German model. There is admiration for the German economic success, but at the same time not so much for its institutions and certainly not for its restrictive migration policy. The Southern countries see it as a preposterous pain to Europe by shaping EU policy a la Germany and forcing austerity policy at the costs of its neighbours. Can the German model be copied? And what do neighbours recommend Germany to do?