IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/spmain/hal-05448425.html

Exportweltmeister: Germany’s Foreign Investment Returns in International Comparison

Author

Listed:
  • Franziska Hünnekes

    (Centre de recherche de la Banque Centrale européenne - Banque Centrale Européenne)

  • Maximilian Konradt

    (Graduate Institute Geneva)

  • Moritz Schularick

    (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Kiel Institute for the World Economy - Kiel Institute for the World Economy, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research)

  • Christoph Trebesch

    (Kiel Institute for the World Economy - Kiel Institute for the World Economy, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research, Ifo Institute)

  • Julian Wingenbach

    (Goethe University Frankfurt = Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main)

Abstract

Germany is a world champion in exporting capital ("Exportweltmeister"). Few countries have invested larger amounts of savings abroad. However, we show that Germany plays in the third division when it comes to investment performance. We construct a comprehensive new database of foreign investment returns for 13 advanced economies going back to the 1970s. Germany's foreign returns were 2 to 5 percentage points lower, per year, than those of comparable countries. Germany also earns significantly less within asset classes, especially for equities and FDI. These aggregate results are confirmed when using return data from 50,000 mutual funds worldwide. German investment funds are worse at stock picking and at timing the market than their international peers. This is particularly true for the "Big 6" German mutual fund companies. German households would have fared much better with a passive investment strategy.

Suggested Citation

  • Franziska Hünnekes & Maximilian Konradt & Moritz Schularick & Christoph Trebesch & Julian Wingenbach, 2025. "Exportweltmeister: Germany’s Foreign Investment Returns in International Comparison," Sciences Po Economics Publications (main) hal-05448425, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-05448425
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104056
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-05448425v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-05448425v1/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104056?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Allen, Cían & Juvenal, Luciana, 2025. "The role of currencies in external balance sheets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    3. Joyce, Joseph, 2021. "The International Distribution of FDI Income And Its Impact on Income Inequality," MPRA Paper 106448, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Hüther, Michael, 2020. "Mangelt es den Deutschen an Wachstumsfantasie?," IW policy papers 3/2020, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) / German Economic Institute.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • F30 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - General
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • F36 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Financial Aspects of Economic Integration
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:hal:spmain:hal-05448425. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Contact - Sciences Po Department of Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.