Der Euro Als Triebfeder Des Deutschen Exports?

Die ausufernde Verschuldung insbesondere der südeuropäischen Mitgliedstaaten stellt die Europäische Währungsunion (EWU) derzeit vor große Herausforderungen. Während über lange Zeit Einigkeit darüber herrschte, den vollständigen Erhalt der Währungsunion mit einem milliardenschweren Rettungsschirm zu sichern, wurden jüngst erste Forderungen nach einem Austritt Griechenlands aus dem Euroraum laut. Insbesondere in Deutschland wird befürchtet, dass ein Austritt einzelner Länder oder gar ein kompletter Zerfall der Währungsunion mit großen ökonomischen Nachteilen verbunden wäre. So wird argumentiert, dass gerade Deutschland aufgrund seiner hohen Exportorientierung und jahrelanger Lohnzurückhaltung mehr als alle anderen EWU-Mitgliedsländer vom Euro profitiere. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersucht der vorliegende Beitrag, welche Konsequenzen ein Austritt einzelner Länder aus der Währungsunion und damit verbundene Veränderungen der preislichen Wettbewerbsfähigkeit auf die deutschen Ausfuhren in diese Länder hätte. Im Ergebnis zeigt sich, dass sich ein Austritt Irlands, Griechenlands, Spaniens und Portugals kaum negativ auf die deutschen Exporte auswirken würde. Ein kompletter Zerfall der Währungsunion und eine Wiedereinführung nationaler Währungen dürfte dagegen, aufgrund der nach wie vor recht hohen Bedeutung des Euroraums als Absatzmarkt für deutsche Produkte, den Exportzuwachs spürbar dämpfen.The excessive accumulation of debt especially in the southern member states currently challenges European Monetary Union (EMU). Whereas for a long time, preventing a break-up of EMU was indisputable, in the meantime, voices were being raised claiming a withdrawal of Greece from the currency union. Especially in Germany, a withdrawal of individual members from the currency union (or even a complete break-up of EMU) is associated with economic disadvantages. Particularly, it is argued that EMU is of greatest utility for Germany due to the countries' longstanding wage moderation and strong export orientation. Against this background, this paper analyzes the effects of a withdrawal of individual member states from the currency union on German exports. Thereby, it is assumed that a withdrawal of those countries from EMU would be accompanied by real devaluations. As the analyses show, the impact of a withdrawal of Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal from the currency union on German exports would be rather small. However, since European Monetary Union as a whole is still the most important foreign market for German manufacturers, a complete break-up of EMU could noticeably weaken German export performance

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe