"Schlusslicht Deutschland": Was können die Unterschiede in der Finanzpolitik erklären?

In the nineties, the German economy grew about half a percentage point less than the rest of the European Monetary Union (EMU). The paper deals with differences in fiscal policy as a potential reason for this. At least a part of the “growth gap” between Germany and the rest of the EMU can be related to the difference in the relation of government expenditures to GDP. This relation was more or less constant in Germany in the nineties, whereas it declined significantly in the other EMU countries on average, thus contributing to higher growth there.