From Sick Man of Europe to Economic Superstar: Germany's Resurgent Economy

摘要

In the late 1990s and into the early 2000s, Germany was often called "the sick man of Europe" (for example, Economist 2004), a phrase usually attributed to comments by Czar Nicholas I of Russia about the troubles faced by the Ottoman Empire in the mid-19th century. Indeed, Germany's economic growth averaged only about 1.2 percent per year from 1998 to 2005, including a recession in 2003, and unemployment rates rose from 9.2 percent in 1998 to 11.1 percent in 2005 (according to World Bank data).