Germany's recent export successes and the fast recovery from the 2007 -2009 crisis made it Europe's "economic superstar" in public opinion. This paper interprets the German performance against the background of financialisation. After an examination of the pre-crisis demand and growth regime,...

This paper analyzes two claims that have been made about the Target2 payment system. The first one is that this system has been used to support unsustainable current account deficits of Southern European countries. The second one is that the large accumulation of Target2 claims by the Bundesbank...

In this new Policy Brief, CEPS Director Daniel Gros argues that the 13 November announcement of the European Commission that Germany is running an excessive current account surplus appears to be much ado about little. All the Commission can, and will, do is to start an ‘in depth analysis'....

Global structural imbalances in international trade have become a major topic in particular after the Great financial and economic crisis in 2008. China and Germany have been running major balance of trade in goods and services surpluses as well as balance of current account surpluses in the...

In this contribution, Stefano Micossi, Alexandra D'Onofrio and Fabrizia Peirce examine the influence of the euro on the German economy and the role Germany has played in the evolution of Europe's economic and monetary union.This paper describes four features of the German economy which lie at...

In this article, we present a model that can account for the changes in the German current account balance since the 2000s. Our results suggest that an array of structural tax and labor market reforms (Agenda 2010), population aging and pension reforms led to an increase in the household savings...

This paper describes four features of the German economy which lie at the root of its external imbalances: the evolution of its real exchange rate; the underlying trends in productivity and unit labour costs; the persistent shortfall of investment relative to domestic savings; and the deployment...