Globalization

On 1 January 2023, Croatia became the newest member of the Schengen Agreement of the European Union (EU) and also joined the Eurozone. This will not only mean a new currency and the elimination of border controls. It will also mean reductions in barriers to trade between Croatia and other EU member states. The Schengen Agreement and the Eurozone are part of the engine of European integration, namely the reduction of trading costs between the member countries in various dimensions as well as in trade with third countries. This includes the European Customs Union, the European Single Market, the Eurozone, the removal of customs barriers in the Schengen area and the EU’s free trade agreements with third countries.

There are three major challenges that today will force a rethinking of public goods: each of them may be thought of in terms of fundamental challenges to security, personal and national. One is the existential threat of climate change, and the bizarre geopolitical consequences of that change. The second is the impact of AI on labor market practices. AI is not only an obvious threat to employment, but also a security challenge. The third related challenge is the monetary revolution that is being produced by new technologies such as blockchain, and the consequent possibility of generating non-state moneys.

In October 2021, 136 countries and jurisdictions agreed on the introduction of a global effective minimum tax (OECD 2021). The plan is to impose a minimum tax rate of 15 percent on the global profits of multinational corporations (MNCs). If an MNC’s effective tax burden in a country is less than 15 percent, additional taxes will be collected until the ratio of tax payments to profits reaches a level of 15 percent. This is to affect all MNCs whose global consolidated revenue is at least €750 million.

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the configuration of international supply chains has received increased public attention. Pandemic-related disruptions in production and transportation have led to questions about the reliability of international production networks. Moreover, the war in Ukraine and the associated sanctions against Russia have cast a new light on the geopolitical significance of economic interdependencies with autocratic regimes. How do firms react to these developments, and have they already adjusted their sourcing strategies? In this policy brief, we present the results from a representative survey of more than 4,000 firms in Germany, providing insights into how companies have responded to supply chain disruptions and which priorities they are setting for the future.

In recent decades, China has risen to become Germany’s most important trading partner for international trade in goods. Has Germany become too dependent from trade with China? An analysis using direct and indirect value-added linkages along the supply chain shows that China plays an important, but by no means dominant role for Germany as a supplier or destination market. However, in a survey conducted by the ifo Institute, 46% of German firms in the manufacturing sector state that they currently depend on important intermediate inputs from China. Of those, almost half of the firms are planning to reduce imports from China in the future. The most frequently mentioned reasons for reducing imports from China are the desire to decrease dependencies and increase diversification, increased freight costs and disruptions in transportation, as well as political uncertainty. An analysis at the product level shows that the German economy depends on several critical industrial goods and raw materials from China.