Triebkräfte und Lösungsansätze Globaler und Europäischer Leistungsbilanzungleichgewichte (Determinations of and Economic Policy Solutions for Global and Intra-European Imbalances)

Abstract

The paper scrutinizes the determinants of global and intra-European current account imbalances, which have continued to grow since the turn of the millennium up to the recent crisis. For Europe, the reasons of the current account imbalances are identified to originate in the German attempts to consolidate public finances and to restore the international competitiveness of the enterprise sector after the end of its reunification boom. On a global level, expansionary monetary and fiscal policies of the US, which interact with the macroeconomic policies of the countries at the periphery of the world dollar standard, are seen to be at the root of the global imbalances. Based on the different types of current account imbalances in Europe and the informal dollar standard different crisis and adjustment scenarios are discussed. Due to the pivotal role of the dollar in the international monetary system, a fundamental consolidation of US monetary and fiscal policies is seen as the prerequisite for a reduction of global and intra-European imbalances.