Hans-Werner Sinn
Hans-Werner Sinn is Professor of Economics and Public Finance, University of Munich, and President of the Ifo Institute.
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2010-02-23
| The Greek disaster was possible because its government deceived its European partners for years with faked statistics. The other euro-zone countries, fearing a massive loss of trust in the common currency, have no choice but to come to the rescue, but the price for Greece will be a significant loss of sovereignty.... read |
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2009-12-23
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Once upon a time, stocks were risky and collateralized securities were safe. That time is over, as the collapse of the US mortgage securitization market has exposed the once-vaunted American financial system's underlying lack of trustworthiness.... read |
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2009-10-23
| Many people believe that America will try to play “the Italian card”: inflating away its public debt and devaluing the currency in order to maintain international competitiveness. Europe, meanwhile, also faces skyrocketing public debt, but the strengthening euro makes inflation impossible, making Japanese-style stagnation a serious risk.... read |
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2009-08-24
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The forces of globalization that were liberated by the fall of Communism have created a better world, with rapid economic convergence and shrinking inequality. But the future is also fraught with danger, as the changing global economic power structure will inevitably re-shape the geopolitical order in ways that incumbent powers, particularly the US, will not easily accept.... read |
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2009-06-23
| In recent months, US bank shares have rebounded, and some banks have even succeeded in repaying at least part of their government-provided capital. But this may only be a temporary improvement in expectations rather than a sign of permanent recovery, as the size of the banks’ hidden losses on their balance sheets is probably enormous, with much of it yet to be written off. ... read |
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2009-04-27
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Since last autumn, Germany has been accused by many Anglo-American economists, above all by the 2008 Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, of not doing enough to combat the world economic crisis and of free-riding on other countries’ stimulus programs. The data, however, show that this allegation stands reality on its head.... read |
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2009-02-26
| To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never have so many billions of dollars been pumped out by so many governments and central banks. But fears of inflation, shared by Germany and other countries, are simply not well founded.... read |
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2008-12-29
| German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been widely criticized for playing the spoiler in the competition to provide billions to prevent a breakdown of the world economy. But there are good economic reasons for Germany to wait before implementing a stimulus package, and Merkel's stance can also be explained by justified fears of the EU's redistribution machinery.... read |
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2008-10-14
| The US must carry out fundamental reforms of its financial system to plug the equity leaks and recover investors’ confidence. But even then it will have a hard time selling financial assets to the rest of the world unless American households learn to accumulate wealth by cutting consumption rather than speculating on real estate.... read |
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The Global Economy's Gathering Storm
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Hans-Werner Sinn 
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From 2004 to 2007, the world economy experienced an unusually long and strong boom, with growth rates of nearly 5% and with many countries participating. Now, however, increasingly bad news in most major economies is giving rise to serious doubts, raising the specter of global recession.... read
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2008-12-29
| German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been widely criticized for playing the spoiler in the competition to provide billions to prevent a breakdown of the world economy. But there are good economic reasons for Germany to wait before implementing a stimulus package, and Merkel's stance can also be explained by justified fears of the EU's redistribution machinery.... read |
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2005-03-23
| France’s decision effectively abolishing its 35-hour workweek by allowing employers to increase working hours – and pay – marks a reversal of a decades-old trend. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, most European countries reduced working hours: Germany went from more than 40 to 38 per week, the UK from 40 to 37, Denmark from 39 to 37, and France from 40 to 35. Today, however, as Europeans struggle with high unemployment and stagnating living standards, they may have to work longer to cope with globalization.... read |
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2005-01-31
| When German officials pushed in the 1990’s for the Stability and Growth Pact as a prerequisite for giving up the Deutschmark, they did not anticipate that Germany would be the first country to violate the pact. While the pact says that a government cannot borrow more than 3% of its GDP, Germany’s public-finance deficit reached 3.7% of GDP and more from 2002 to 2004. ... read |
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2005-10-14
| Germany is the world’s industrial bazaar. No other country can offer its international clients such a broad variety of industrial products. Germany has 450 hidden world champions for niche products, and is home to 15 of the 20 biggest trade fairs in the world. It is also the world’s top exporter of merchandise and the second-largest exporter of goods and services.... read |
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2005-07-28
| Over the last decade, Germany has been the slowest growing economy in the European Union, and Europe has been the slowest growing continent in the world. From 1995 to 2005, Germany will have grown by only 14.6%, while the old EU on average will have grown by 24%, the US by 39.9%, and the world economy by 45.6%. Why has Germany performed so badly?... read |
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2005-05-25
| Germany invented socialism. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were Germans. The Social Democratic movement that shaped the modern European welfare state also originated in Germany. Although the country profited greatly from its reintegration into the world trading system after World War II, Germany never really came to terms with Anglo-Saxon capitalism and skepticism about it still runs deep. ... read |
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2005-12-28
| In 2004, the world economy grew at a rate of 5.1%, the fastest pace in the last 28 years. While Ifo`s World Economic Climate indicator, generated from quarterly surveys of 1,200 experts in 90 countries, worsened slightly during the first three quarters of 2005, it rose again in the last quarter, indicating a continuation of the boom. In 2005, growth is estimated to have been about 4.3%, and a similar rate can be expected in 2006, marking a period of sustained rapid global growth unseen since the 1970’s.... read |
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2006-02-27
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2006-04-25
| May 1, 2006, is a crucial date for Europe, for it is the deadline for implementing the European Union’s directive on freedom of movement into national law. Most countries have already changed their immigration laws, or have promised to do so before the deadline. Only Belgium, Italy, Finland, and Luxemburg lag behind. ... read |
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2006-10-25
| While most of the world’s advanced countries face increasing difficulties in coping with the forces of globalization and competition from low-wage countries, the Scandinavian countries -- Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden -- seem to have managed these challenges quite well. To be sure, Scandinavian growth is mediocre. With average yearly GDP growth of 2.2% from 1995 to 2005 it fell short of the non-Scandinavian countries of the EU-15, which grew by 2.8% on average. But Scandinavia is good in terms of levels of per capita GDP and unemployment. Its average per capita GDP was 39% above that of the other EU countries, and on average the unemployment rate stood at 6.7%, compared to 8% elsewhere in the old EU. ... read |
2009-12-23
