Rethinking Germany’s Growth Model: Regional and Historical Trends

Germany is perhaps the most clearly defined case in the Growth Model (GM) literature. As the example for an export-led GM, it is one of the most extensively studied GMs, but seldom are the geographical foundations of the German GM explored. The diverse economic structure within Germany has not yet been connected to the GM literature. This paper takes a closer look at the German Growth Model by examining its regional components. Public debate and much scholarship often treat Germany’s export-led economy as one unified model. Yet there is considerable variation across regions—especially between East and West but also between industrialized, service-oriented, and rural regions—and over time. Is there truly one Modell Deutschland, or are there multiple models within Germany? And how do these regional models shape regional and national policymaking? How are these regional models shaped by regional and national policymaking? Drawing on historical regional economic data for the EU and Germany and a novel dataset of German regional party platforms (1945–2023), we find regional clusters of GMs that transcend national borders. Additionally, we see more ‘specific’ and numerous GMs at the regional level than at the national level. Economic adherence to a national level GM is still visible, as we see more inter- than intra country economic diversity between regional economies using the usual GM indicators. For the German case, this paper shows that Germany’s regional economies follow distinct patterns. Extending the usual time frame of GM analysis beyond the 1990s and going back to the 1950s, unveils time- and region-specific trends that underscore the need for a more variegated analysis of the German GM and its development since WWII. Growth is consistently concentrated in the Southern Bundesländer with the Eastern Bundesländer of the former GDR mostly excluded from economic gains. Further, only a few Bundesländer can be said to primarily rely on exports as their primary driver of growth throughout the observation period. These regional economic differences translate into political differences: Regional policy agendas often diverge from national ones—not along partisan lines, but by economic structure. Parties’ preferences reflect their regional economies, regardless of affiliation. The paper thus argues for a more disaggregated view of the German model, one that takes regional diversity seriously. The focus on the regional level in one of the blueprint cases in the GM research agenda adds to recent contributions that underline the need to re-focus on the actual places where the main variable of interest for GM scholars – (income) growth – is actually generated. One valuable contribution of this paper is the collection of a data-set of state-level party manifestos in the German Bundesländer since 1945 and its combination with ‘ARDECO’ and self-collected socio-economic data on the regional level. Methodologically, the paper goes beyond growth decomposition on the Bundesland-level by manual coding of the policy agenda in regional party manifestos, and on a more fine-grained level, human-coding of the agenda and salience of economic policy positions as well as dictionary-based approaches to select economic and sectoral target groups.