MEĐUNARODNI PROBLEMI

GERMANY AND THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY

SIMON Jr. György (Dr. György Simon Jr., independent researcher, Corvinus University of Budapest), gsimon@indamail.hu

Germany has traditionally been the powerhouse of the European economy and integration. In this article, an attempt is made to put its economic development in a European context by comparing it with the achievements of the total group of more developed members of the European Union, the EU-15, prior to the current global crisis. The author applies both the methods of statistical analysis and models of mathematical economics to show the combined influence of growth mechanism regularities, economic policy and international economic relations on the long-term development of the German and European economy. Viewing economic growth as the central problem, he investigates the factors of its deviations from the equilibrium state, as well as the regularities affecting productivity and technical progress. His main conclusion is that the current economic crisis can be surmounted with the help of a growthoriented economic policy based on the intensification of technical progress and, first of all, of its creative component, which would create favourable conditions for improving competitiveness.

Keywords: economic growth, European integration, productivity, technical progress, Germany