Why Making Europe German Won’t Fix the Crisis

April 8 (Bloomberg) -- Most people see Europe’s economiccrisis as a cautionary tale of good and bad policy making, inwhich fiscally prudent countries, such as Germany, remainstable, while reckless ones, such as Greece, unravel.

So ingrained is this idea that it’s now common to hearanalysts say Europe must become “German” to exit from thecrisis, adopting Teutonic approaches to policy -- from fiscaltightening to labor- and product-market reforms. If onlysocieties on Europe’s periphery can learn to do what the Germansdo, the argument goes, the European Union and its singlecurrency will have a stable future.