Economist Daron Acemoglu, who is to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics in Stockholm on Tuesday, deems a reform of the debt brake in Germany to be urgently needed. “Germany’s biggest problem is the crumbling infrastructure” the researcher told the FAZ. Its poor state is a break compared to the better state a decade or 20 years ago, as he knows from his own experience.
“It makes no sense to bind one’s hands in a phase like this, looking at the debt brake” Acemoglu criticized. Fiscal discipline is good, “but such strict limits are not useful.” Public-private investments in new technologies and infrastructure must be promoted instead, he said. They are the “key to Germany”.
Regarding Germany’s economic prospects, the MIT economist expressed a generally positive view: “It’s clear that Germany has a few challenging years ahead. But I believe the German economic model still has its strengths.” He mentioned the system of co-determination in German companies and the system of education and further education as examples. However, it might be difficult for Germany to catch up with foreign competition in e-cars.
Bureaucracy and over-regulation are also a problem, as in all industrial countries. He cannot be won over by the proposal of FDP leader Christian Lindner to “take a bit more risk and more muscles” – “my role models wouldn’t be those two.” Musk is a good entrepreneur, but the wrong one for reducing bureaucracy and regulation. “Artificial intelligence and the pharmaceutical sector, in particular, must be effectively regulated so that people can build trust in the technologies” Acemoglu told the FAZ.