There’s a tendency, in
discussing Germany ’s
position in world trade, to assume that massive surpluses have always been the
German norm — that the country’s high-quality products have always fueled an
export engine that inevitably sold much more abroad than Germans bought. But
it’s not true. Here’s Germany ’s
current account balance as a percentage of GDP since 1980:
There was an earlier period of
surpluses in the mid-80s, largely the counterpart of America ’s Reagan-era deficits. But Germany didn’t
run a surplus at all in the 90s. Its big move came with the introduction of the
euro, and corresponding huge capital flows to the European periphery.
Along with this move came a sharp decline
in German relative labor costs; here’s the OECD number:
Again, the point is that
this made sense during the great euro area capital transfer. The problem is
that Germany has continued to maintain highly competitive labor costs and run
huge surpluses since the bubble burst — and that in a depressed world economy,
this makes Germany a significant part of the problem.
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου