The unique institutions that make up Germany's "unitary federal state," long considered part of the country's post-war success story, are now generally perceived as a "joint-decision trap" impeding effective policy responses to new economic and demographic challenges at both levels of...

The European Monetary Union (EMU) has removed crucial instruments of macroeconomic management from the control of democratically accountable governments. Worse still, the EMU has systemically caused destabilizing macroeconomic imbalances that member states found difficult or impossible to...