Corporate governance versus economic governance: banks and industrial restructuring in the US and Germany

Sigurt Vitols

No FS I 95-310, Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economic Change and Employment from WZB Berlin Social Science Center

Abstract: This paper critically examines the debate on corporate governance and the claim (often made in Anglo-American companies) that the close links between German banks and industry are primarily responsible for the longer-term investment strategies and greater quality competitiveness of German manufacturing. Instead, it is argued here that manufacturing investment and bank behavior must be examined within a broader system of economic governance. In particular the regulation of labor markets is a key factor influencing company choices between price and quality-competitive strategies. The corporatist regulation of German labor markets has encouraged quality-competitive strategies by keeping labor costs out of competition to a greater extent than in the US, where a collapse in pattern bargaining in core manufacturing industries and the strategic use of bankruptcy was motivated by companies' attempts to gain a comparative price advantage on the basis of lower labor costs. This argument is supported through a case study of the restructuring of the steel industry in Germany and the US in the 1980s.

Date: 1995
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:wzbece:fsi95310

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