Publication

This paper analyzes Germany's system of economic and political governance and its reliance on group decision-making and consensus. The author discusses this approach in relation to the labor market, wage formation, influence of trade unions and relationship banking or the university system. He furthermore stresses the importance of consensus in the governance of government and its federal structure and examines distributive federalism as another expression of the consensus mechanism. The author concludes that it is surprising how strongly the market economy is restrained in Germany.