At midnight (CET) on 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom left the European Union. During a transition period, the United Kingdom will remain a member of the single European market and the customs union – after this period, however, Brexit could have far-reaching repercussions for the financial section and elsewhere.

The role of trade in goods in the development of global imbalances

The financial assets of households in Germany came to €6,302 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2019.

The advantages or disadvantages firms experience as a result of their size, referred to in the economic literature as returns to scale, are of central importance in many economic models. Increasing returns to scale, whereby unit costs decrease as output volume increases, could explain productivity differences between Europe and the United States. We present fresh evidence on the returns to scale of European firms: most exhibit constant returns to scale, but a non-trivial share also show increasing returns to scale.

The economic recovery in Germany was brought to a standstill in the final quarter of 2020, the Bundesbank writes in its latest Monthly Report, stating that this was due to resurgent infection rates and the tightening of containment measures. Economic activity was consequently still almost 4% down on the pre-crisis level of the fourth quarter of 2019.

Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €16.9 billion in November 2022, up €11.2 billion on the previous month’s level. This was caused by the larger surplus in the goods account and the shift to a surplus in invisible current transactions, which comprise services as well as primary and secondary income.