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The German Manufacturing Sector Unpacked: Institutions, Policies and Future Trajectories

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The German Manufacturing Sector Unpacked: Institutions, Policies and Future Trajectories The German manufacturing sector unpacked: institutions, policies and future trajectories Future of Manufacturing Project: Evidence Paper 13 Foresight, Government Office for Science The German manufacturing sector unpacked: institutions, policies and future trajectories By Dr. Bob Hancké & Dr. Steve Coulter London School of Economics and Political Science October 2013 This review has been commissioned as part of the UK Government’s Foresight project, Future of Manufacturing. The views expressed do not represent policy of any government or organisation. Contents Executive summary.......................................................................................................................4 1. Introduction................................................................................................................................6 2. Industrial finance in Germany ..................................................................................................9 2.1 Characteristics of the industrial finance system.....................................................................10 3. Labour markets and skills ......................................................................................................14 3.1 Wage bargaining and industrial democracy...........................................................................14 3.2 Vocational skills .....................................................................................................................16 4. Firm co-ordination and innovation strategies ......................................................................19 4.1 Innovation strategies..............................................................................................................19 4.2 Firm co-ordination ..................................................................................................................20 5. Complementarities in the German manufacturing sector ...................................................23 5.1 Institutional complementarities...............................................................................................23 5.2 The Mittelstand ......................................................................................................................26 6. Future trajectories for German manufacturing.....................................................................27 6.1 Threats to the German manufacturing system.......................................................................27 7. Are there policy lessons for the UK?.....................................................................................30 7.1 Developing co-ordination in an unco-ordinated economy......................................................30 7.2 Policy innovations for the future.............................................................................................32 References ...................................................................................................................................34 The German manufacturing sector unpacked: institutions, policies and future trajectories Executive summary Germany is currently Europe’s leading manufacturing exporter, therefore; its industrial model may contain important lessons for other advanced industrial nations coming to terms with the aftermath of the ‘Great Recession’. This report analyses the German manufacturing sector from the analytical perspective of the three markets in capitalism (capital, labour and product markets); examines how they operate; what the role of policies and institutions has been in those; and assesses their medium and long-term viability. Perhaps the principal conclusion of interest to policymakers is that the German state has a fairly limited role in directing industrial development. Government operates in an ‘enabling’, rather than strategic, capacity in industry by supporting key institutions, such as the training system and underwriting company loans. Instead, intra-sectoral networks of companies, trade unions, banks and technical institutions play the lead role in coordinating economic activity, and it is the depth and quality of this interaction, together with the micro-economic institutions supporting this, which is responsible for the country’s manufacturing success. German manufacturing firms dominate many high-value market niches, particularly automobiles and semi-customisable machine tools, however; they are not immune to competition from low-wage emerging economies and recent years have seen many large, internationally-oriented firms detach themselves from the domestic institutional framework. In doing so, they risk undermining Germany’s vaunted ‘Mittlestand’ SME sector. The system as a whole is also vulnerable to rigidities. These include: high wages, long employee tenure; an inability to move into high-tech, radically innovative product market sectors; and with decision-making structures that give voice to many potential stakeholders in the company. On the other hand, the system has proven remarkably resilient, as well as successful, and empirical evidence presented here shows it is far from redundant. The report also offers some tentative policy suggestions for the UK, while at the same time warning of the difficulties of supplanting German institutions and policies into the more market-oriented UK setting. Synopsis Introduction: Outline of the paper, together with a brief introductory of recent developments in industrial policy in Germany. Finance: Germany’s ‘hausbank’ system and its provision of long-term ‘patient’ capital is described and evaluated, and the role of state-backed industry banks such as the KfW is also examined. Labour Markets and Skills: Co-ordinated wage bargaining and industrial democracy, giving employees and other stakeholders a key role in company decisions, plays a key part in the German production system. As well as ensuring industrial peace, the long- term relationships which ensue incentivize firms and workers to embark on high-quality technical and vocational training. 4 The German manufacturing sector unpacked: institutions, policies and future trajectories Firm coordination and innovation strategies: The manufacturing sector is underpinned by a range of institutions promoting ‘strategic’ (i.e. non-market) interaction between firms and other agents. This supports an innovation process that allows for steady, ‘incremental’ improvements to product lines, resulting in high quality. Complementarities in the German manufacturing sector: This section examines how the country’s manufacturing system functions as a whole. The success of the model is underpinned by the presence of a set of mutually complementary institutions which produce an outcome that is superior to the sum of its parts. Future trajectories: The challenges to the model arising from financial globalization and competition from low-wage economies are examined and evaluated, as well as endogenously-generated tensions within the system itself. Are there lessons for UK Policymakers? The organization of the UK and German economies differ significantly in that activity in the former is coordinated primarily through markets, whereas German firms also benefit from collaborative networks that produce non-market coordination. Any attempt to ‘borrow’ German policies needs to recognize this, although there may be scope for limited institution-building. 5 The German manufacturing sector unpacked: institutions, policies and future trajectories 1. Introduction German manufacturing success has been the envy of many OECD economies. Even in the dark years of low growth after unification in 1991, German exports of goods grew significantly, both in absolute terms and expressed as world share of exports. It should therefore not come as a surprise that many economies have attempted to emulate the policies that underpinned this success: France under President Mitterrand did so in the early 1980s (Levy 1999), MIT’s Productivity Commission in the late 1980s invoked German industrial prowess (Dertouzos et al. 1989), and many Central European economies considered the German model as a possible example of sustainable capitalism early in the transition period. Today, with Germany seemingly at its export apex again, interest in the policies and institutions underlying German manufacturing (export) success has been growing everywhere, including the UK. This is not particularly surprising, given Germany’s superior manufacturing export performance over the last 14 years, both as a proportion of trade in (Figure 1) and in money terms (Figure 2). Figure 1: Trade balance in manufacturing Source: OECD STAN indicators 2009 6 The German manufacturing sector unpacked: institutions, policies and future trajectories Figure 2: Export-Import Ratio in manufacturing Source: OECD STAN indicators 2009 The analysis of the policies and institutions underpinning the strength of German manufacturing in this report starts with one important observation. Compared with France and the UK during the post--‐war era, where the state has played, or at the very least attempted to play, a central role in steering the supply--‐side of the economy, Germany has witnessed relatively few direct government policies that support manufacturing. The very few exceptions are well--‐known – industrial credit through the reconstruction bank KfW, or the industrial expertise that the Fraunhofer institutes in applied research offer to local companies and beyond, for example – but on the whole, the government has satisfied
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