IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/econpr/_2.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The German Current Account Surplus: Where Does It Come From, Is It Harmful and Should Germany Do Something about It?

Author

Listed:
  • Gabriel Felbermayr
  • Clemens Fuest
  • Timo Wollmershäuser

Abstract

In the international economic policy debate Germany is criticized heavily for its current account surplus. This paper describes the factors that have led to the surplus and discusses the policy implications. The current account surplus is mainly a result of higher savings, driven by an ageing population. The claim that the German surplus causes economic damage either in Germany or in other countries is not well founded. But Germany faces growing political pressures related to the threat of protectionism, the risk that a growing creditor position may lead to political backlash, and the fact that European Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedures imply that current account surpluses should not exceed six percent of GDP. To reduce the surplus Germany should focus on a corporate tax reform to boost private investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabriel Felbermayr & Clemens Fuest & Timo Wollmershäuser, 2017. "The German Current Account Surplus: Where Does It Come From, Is It Harmful and Should Germany Do Something about It?," EconPol Policy Reports 2, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:econpr:_2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/EconPol_Policy_Report_02_2017_German_Account_Surplus.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christian Grimme & Timo Wollmershäuser, 2017. "Zu den Auswirkungen von Rohstoffpreisänderungen auf den Leistungsbilanzsaldo," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 70(14), pages 44-46, July.
    2. Jan Priewe, 2018. "A time bomb for the Euro? Understanding Germany's current account surplus," IMK Studies 59-2018, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    3. Christina Graf & Christian Grimme, 2017. "Der Einfluss der Vermögenseinkommen auf den deutschen Leistungsbilanzüberschuss," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 70(22), pages 38-44, November.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:econpr:_2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Klaus Wohlrabe). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/ifooode.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.