Despite exporting more good and services than any other country in the world, economic growth in Germany has been slow through the nineties and the early twenty first century with low wage growth, rising unemployment and increasing public deficits. German unemployment was traditionally diagnosed as structural, neglecting macroeconomic causes of economic stagnancy in the economic policy debate. This book offers a fresh, innovative analysis of the German economic policy debate, containing essays from eight distinguished international economists.

These essays tackle various aspects of the German and European market, ranging from theoretical issues criticizing the narrowness of the debate, analyses of the real effects of monetary policies in the short and long run, fiscal policy contributions, wage policies, to family policies, arguing for a more expansionary macroeconomic policy to counteract economic stagnancy and improve prosperity in Germany and Europe.