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Endgame? The Fiscal Crisis of the German State

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  • Streeck, Wolfgang

Abstract

A longer-term perspective reveals the historical exhaustion of the financial resources of the democratic interventionist state of the postwar period. German politics present and future is shaped by a deep crisis of public finance. Its current expression is an apparently insurmountable conflict between four equally urgent political objectives: paying for social security by general taxes, rather than payroll taxes, to lower labor costs; consolidating public budgets and reducing the public debt; cutting taxes on mobile capital; and increasing public investment in response to new social problems and changing economic conditions. Analysis of the fiscal problems of the German state casts new light on the turbulences of German politics since the Schröder government's first term.

Suggested Citation

  • Streeck, Wolfgang, 2007. "Endgame? The Fiscal Crisis of the German State," MPIfG Discussion Paper 07/7, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:077
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    1. Ganghof, Steffen & Genschel, Philipp, 2007. "Taxation and Democracy in the EU," MPIfG Discussion Paper 07/2, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    2. Streeck, Wolfgang & Trampusch, Christine, 2005. "Economic reform and the political economy of the German welfare state," MPIfG Working Paper 05/2, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    3. Trampusch, Christine, 2003. "Ein Bündnis für die nachhaltige Finanzierung der Sozialversicherungssysteme: Interessenvermittlung in der bundesdeutschen Arbeitsmarkt- und Rentenpolitik," MPIfG Discussion Paper 03/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    4. Hinrichs, Karl, 1998. "Reforming the public pension scheme in Germany: The end of the traditional consensus?," Working papers of the ZeS 11/1998, University of Bremen, Centre for Social Policy Research (ZeS).
    5. Wolfgang Streeck, 2001. "High Equality, Low Activity: The Contribution of the Social Welfare System to the Stability of the German Collective Bargaining Regime," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 6, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    6. Ganghof, Steffen, 2004. "Wer regiert in der Steuerpolitik? Einkommensteuerreform zwischen internationalem Wettbewerb und nationalen Verteilungskonflikten," Schriften aus dem Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Köln, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, volume 50, number 50.
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    Cited by:

    1. Streeck, Wolfgang, 2009. "Man weiß es nicht genau: Vom Nutzen der Sozialwissenschaften für die Politik," MPIfG Working Paper 09/11, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    2. Fernandez, Juan J., 2010. "Economic crises, high public pension spending and blame-avoidance strategies: Pension policy retrenchments in 14 social-insurance countries, 1981 - 2005," MPIfG Discussion Paper 10/9, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    3. Vail, Mark I., 2007. "The evolution of bargaining under austerity: Political change in contemporary French and German labor-market reform," MPIfG Discussion Paper 07/10, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    4. Peter Mair, 2011. "Bini Smaghi vs. the Parties: Representative Government and Institutional Constraints," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 22, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).

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