# Germany's Future Growth

Based on our economic health index, we project that Germany's real growth rate over the next 10 years will be in the vicinity of 0.1% to 0.8%. This growth rate is somewhat below the global average, ranked 14 out of 20 major economies, and 6 out of 11 developed countries. As a reminder, this estimate (and this writing) is based on our computer-generated analysis of the statistics detailed in Part 1, and doesn't account for exogenous shocks (like commodity or political shocks, or wars). In Germany's case, our growth estimate comes from combining our expectation of a 1.5% growth rate per worker, which is somewhat below the global average, and a labor force growth rate of -0.7%, which is well below other major economies. The growth in output per worker is driven significantly by productivity and indebtedness. Over the long-term productivity matters most, while swings in indebtedness tend to be an important driver in the short-term. Given we are looking at a 10 year time frame, we weigh our productivity measures about two thirds and our indebtedness measure about one third (though there is no precision here). Over the next 10 years, we expect Germany's productivity to be somewhat worse than most major countries (implying a growth rate of 0.1% on its own), and indebtedness conditions to be about average compared to other countries (implying a growth rate of 2.1% on its own). As shown below, Germany's biggest relative strengths are its monetary policy and its low reliance on credit flows for growth, and its biggest relative problems are its debt and debt service levels and how hard its people work. The various gauges and weights are shown below. The individual indicators that are behind them are explained in Part 1 of this section, and listed in the appendix of this section. Please review this table to understand our comments.

根据我们的经济健康指数，我们预计德国未来10年的实际增长率将在0.1％至0.8％附近。这一增长率略低于全球平均水平，在20个主要经济体中排名第14，11个发达国家中有6个。作为提醒，这个估计（和这篇文章）是基于我们对第1部分详细统计的计算机分析，并不考虑外部冲击（如商品或政治冲击或战争）。在德国的情况下，我们的增长估计来自于我们对每名工人的增长率为1.5％的预期（略低于全球平均水平），劳动力增长率为-0.7％，远低于其他主要经济体。每个工人的产出增长主要受生产力和负债的驱动。在长期生产力方面，大多数情况下，负债波动往往是短期的重要驱动力。鉴于我们正在研究10年的时间范围，我们将生产力措施称为三分之二，而我们的债务衡量约三分之一（尽管这里没有精确度）。在未来10年，我们预计德国的生产率会比大多数主要国家的生产要素差一些（意味着自己的增长率为0.1％），债务状况与其他国家相比平均水平（意味着增长率为2.1％在其自己的）。如下图所示，德国最大的相对优势是货币政策和信贷流动对经济增长的依赖度较低，其最大的相对问题是债务和偿债能力以及人民的劳动水平如何。各种规格和重量如下所示。其背后的各个指标在本节的第1部分进行了说明，并在本节的附录中列出。请查看此表以了解我们的意见。

![](http://d.pr/i/VZBPtu+)

## More detail 更多细节

### Productivity 生产力

#### I. Value: What You Pay Versus What You Get 分数显示为与国家和时间的平均观测值的标准偏差数。

A country's productivity and competitiveness is mostly a function of the relative value it offers, especially for its labor. As shorthand for this, we refer to our gauge of this relative value as "what you pay versus what you get"; it reflects a) the cost and value of employees and b) the levels of investment. Countries that have well-educated workers that are relatively inexpensive and that have higher investment rates grow faster than those that don't.

一个国家的生产率和竞争力主要是其所提供的相对价值，特别是劳动力的一个功能。作为这方面的简写，我们将这个相对价值的衡量指标称为“你所付出的与你所得到的”;它反映了a）员工的成本和价值，以及b）投资水平。拥有受过良好教育的工人比较便宜，投资率高的国家比没有受过良好教育的工人要快。

Germany offers somewhat worse than average value, ranked 19 among the countries we measure. Its workers are somewhat expensive, taking into consideration Germany's about average levels of education and good quality of education. Further, people in Germany don't work hard relative to the cost of their labor - the average male of working age works 18 hours per week (19 out of 20 countries), and the demographics of the workforce are unfavorable. Levels of saving and investing are somewhat low given Germany's high per capita income levels, with investment at about 13% of GDP (18 out of 20 countries).

德国的平均值差于一般，在我们测量的国家中排名第19。它的工人有点贵，考虑到德国的平均教育水平和良好的教育质量。此外，德国人不会因劳动成本而努力工作 - 平均每个工作年龄的男性每周工作18小时（20个国家中有19个），而且员工人数不利。德国的人均收入水平高，投资约占国内生产总值的13％（20个国家中有18个），储蓄和投资水平有所降低。

#### II.　Culture 文化

Just looking solely at the relative value of a country's workers misses the role that the culture plays in determining how much a country will grow. As I've discussed, culture influences the decisions people make about factors like savings rates or how many hours they work each week, which we measure in the previously shown indicators, but culture can also influence work attitudes, levels of efficiency, reliability and other such influences on whether countries underperform or outperform.

仅仅看一个国家工人的相对价值，就忽略了文化在确定一个国家将有多大增长的作用。正如我所讨论的，文化影响人们对储蓄率或每周工作几个小时的决策，这在我们以前显示的指标中是衡量的，但文化也可以影响工作态度，效率水平，可靠性等对国家是否表现不佳或跑赢的影响。

Germany's culture looks to be neutral for growth in coming years because it is ranked 12 out of 20 countries in this culture gauge. Note that our culture measures compare Germany to countries of similar levels of economic development. Starting with self-sufficiency, Germany is rated pretty poorly on this measure, weighing that its workers have a weak work ethic, its level of government support is high (with government outlays at 46% of GDP), and its labor markets are moderately flexible. Germany also seems to value savoring much more than achieving - again, its work ethic is weak, and surveys suggest that its people don't especially value accomplishment and achievement. Furthermore, innovation and commercialism are about average in Germany relative to income. We see the country investing heavily in research and innovation, though its outputs from innovation, including inventions and earnings, are low. Finally, according to the international measures we are using, Germany has average levels of bureaucracy and red tape, somewhat low corruption, and somewhat strong rule of law relative to its income.

德国的文化对于未来几年的发展来说是中立的，因为它在这个文化规模的20个国家中排名第12。请注意，我们的文化措施将德国与经济发展水平相当的国家进行比较。从自给自足的角度来看，德国在这一措施上的表现相当差，称其工人的工作态度较差，其政府支持水平较高（政府支出占国内生产总值的46％），劳动力市场适度弹性。德国似乎比实现价值要好得多 - 再次，其工作伦理薄弱，调查显示，人民群众的成就和成就并不特别。此外，德国的创新与商业主义相对于收入来说大致相当。我们看到国家在研究和创新方面进行了大量投资，尽管其创新产出，包括发明和收益，都是低收益的。最后，根据我们正在使用的国际措施，德国的官僚主义和繁文has节，腐败程度较低，法律相对于收入有一定程度的平均水平。

**Indebtedness 债务**

Think of debt growth that is faster than income growth as being like air in a scuba bottle-there is a limited amount of it that you can use to get an extra boost, but you can't live on it forever. When you are taking it out, you can spend more than is sustainable, but when debts can no longer be raised relative to incomes and the time for paying back comes, the process works in reverse. You can get a picture of where countries stand in the long-term debt cycle and the likelihood of debt being a support or detriment to future growth by assessing the past reliance on debt to support incomes and the attractiveness of taking on new debt.

认为债务增长速度比收入增长速度快，就像像潜水艇一样，空气有限，你可以用来增加额外的收益，但是你永远不会生活在这个水平上。当你把它拿出来的时候，你可以花费更多的可持续性，但是当债务不能相对于收入和偿还时间再提高时，这个过程是相反的。您可以通过评估过去依赖债务来支持收入和承担新债务的吸引力，了解各国在长期债务周期中的地位和债务是否支持未来增长的可能性。

The other major piece of our economic health index looks at the likelihood of debt being a support or detriment to future growth. Germany's indebtedness position is about average compared to other countries, ranked 12 out of the 20 countries we look at. The country has very little room to lever up in the future, with a total debt burden of around 262% of GDP, compared to the global average of 200-250%. In the past few years, its growth was depressed by low credit creation, which is supportive for growth going forward. Lastly, the stance of monetary policy is generally a bit stimulative.

我们的经济健康指数的另一个重要部分是看债务是支持或有害于未来增长的可能性。与其他国家相比，德国的负债状况大致相当，在20个国家中排名第12。国家未来的空间很小，债务负担总额约为国内生产总值的262％，而全球平均水平为200-250％。近几年来，由于信贷创造低迷，其增长受到抑制，这对未来的增长是有支撑的。最后，货币政策的态度一般有点刺激。
