Economists Markus Brunnermeier and Stefan Kolev have presented a comprehensive strategy aimed at modernizing Germany’s economic position. This plan, detailed in a paper titled “Agenda des Aufbruchs: Ten-Point Plan for a Resilient Germany” covers suggestions across all relevant policy areas.
Brunnermeier, who teaches at Princeton, and Kolev, who heads the Ludwig-Erhard-Forum in Berlin, propose several changes. Key among these are making the labor market more flexible through novel collective agreements and education vouchers. They also call for restructuring corporate taxes, providing relief on income tax, and completely revamping the pension, health, and long-term care insurance systems.
While the leaders of the CDU, CSU, and SPD spent the entire weekend debating reform proposals, the feasibility of the government agreeing on a full reform package remains questionable. Brunnermeier and Kolev stated their intention to support such efforts, asserting that “the ten points form a deliberately cross-party compass for a comprehensive reform agenda”. They added that they are working to outline the necessary economic reforms across all policy areas, emphasizing that such reforms require a holistic approach due to the numerous interdependencies between them.
From the perspective of Brunnermeier and Kolev, “resilience” is the critical factor for securing Germany’s future prosperity. According to their agenda, resilience is defined as “the ability to move forward after a shock and to reinvent oneself: adapting quickly to a new normal without losing social cohesion”. Achieving this requires a kind of “re-industrialization” of the German economy, necessitating that existing industrial capabilities be redirected toward AI, biotechnology, quantum computing, novel materials, and particularly, business models that do not yet exist.