The Price of Rights: Regulating International Labor Migration

Abstract

Germany has long had a polycentric and voluntarist industrial policy centered on the medium term. Thanks to the outstanding structural and technological competitiveness of German industry, this country’s rulers have not had to pursue major structural reforms. Faced with the shock of reunification and the opening up of the country’s frontiers, they instead embarked on site-specific policies centered on the attractiveness of their territories. They thus decided to improve the cost-competitiveness of the eastern portion of the country via large scale liberal socio-fiscal reform. The country’s public finances were not spared the internal tensions of unification. On the eve of monetary unification, Germany’s leaders chose to thoroughly reform the West German model by way of budget austerity. This strategy was further extended following major European enlargement in 2004. The natural hinterland of the ex-RDA, German firms undertook productive reorganization at the continental level. The Lisbon strategy and the Stability and Growth Pact allowed the country’s leaders to reform the German model, an orientation that was legitimated by the financial crisis. In this configuration, the country pursues a mercantile industrial policy and socio-fiscal competition that are a source of deadly tension for the pursuit of European integration.

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