TY - BOOK ID - 84656067 TI - Germany : Selected Issues. PY - 2014 SN - 1498377785 1498384013 1498323812 PB - Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, DB - UniCat KW - Industrial productivity KW - Labor market KW - Unemployment KW - Productivity, Industrial KW - TFP (Total factor productivity) KW - Total factor productivity KW - Industrial efficiency KW - Production (Economic theory) KW - Germany KW - Economic conditions KW - Banks and Banking KW - Finance: General KW - Labor KW - Public Finance KW - Industries: Financial Services KW - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: Infrastructures KW - Other Public Investment and Capital Stock KW - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: Public Policy KW - Pension Funds KW - Non-bank Financial Institutions KW - Financial Instruments KW - Institutional Investors KW - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: General KW - Current Account Adjustment KW - Short-term Capital Movements KW - Financial Institutions and Services: Government Policy and Regulation KW - Labour KW - income economics KW - Finance KW - Public finance & taxation KW - Macroeconomics KW - International economics KW - Public investment spending KW - Minimum wages KW - Insurance companies KW - Current account surpluses KW - Wages KW - Expenditure KW - Financial institutions KW - Balance of payments KW - Public investments KW - Minimum wage KW - Banks and banking UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:84656067 AB - This Selected Issues paper on Germany focuses on current economic condition in the country. The build-up of Germany’s current account surplus over the last decade does not lend itself to a single-factor explanation, as both global and domestic factors, as well as policy changes led to increased savings and lower investment. All sectors contributed to the build-up of the surplus. Although fiscal consolidation and higher household savings played a role, the corporate sector experienced a more pronounced shift. This paper provides a retrospective on these developments and explores whether the factors contributing to the surplus are likely to be reversed going forward. Although there are common global drivers for the non-financial corporations shift to a net lender position, several German-specific factors played a role, notably the labor market reforms in the 2000s, the business tax reforms, and the globalization of German firms’ production chains. The households’ saving–investment gap widened in the early 2000s as the pension reforms and growing income inequality boosted households’ savings and residential investment declined by the end of the reunification construction boom. ER -