Growth in labour productivity in the euro area has slowed significantly over the past 20 years. This was not least due to structural factors, the Bundesbank explains in its current Monthly Report. In addition to enterprises’ diminishing ability to innovate and adapt, demographic change could also have a negative impact on labour productivity, according to the experts.

According to the current issue of the Monthly Report, in the final quarter of 2020 Germany's economic recovery was throttled by the higher infection rates and considerably stricter measures introduced again to contain the pandemic. However, in the experts’ assessment, the tighter restrictions have not led to any major setback; instead, real gross domestic product is likely to have more or less stagnated. The pandemic left a deep mark on German economic output in 2020 as a whole.

The financial assets of households in Germany increased by €108 billion in the third quarter of 2020 and now amount to roughly €6.7 trillion. This rise was due to a high propensity to save and the positive developments on the capital markets towards the end of the period.

Many citizens have been increasingly using cards to make payments during the coronavirus pandemic. “According to a representative Bundesbank survey in 2020, the importance of cashless payment methods, especially cards, in everyday expenditures has been growing considerably,” said Bundesbank Executive Board member Burkhard Balz at the unveiling of the results.

The year 2020 saw German economic output contract by 5.0%, with the drop in gross domestic product in a year overshadowed by COVID-19 bringing to an end a ten-year run of growth. This compares with a 0.6% rate of expansion in 2019.

Households in Germany are expecting the rate of inflation to increase, according to findings from the Bundesbank Online Panel Households at the end of last year. Survey results from December 2020 indicate that individuals are expecting inflation to come to 3.1% on average over the next 12 months, which is the highest rate measured in 2020.

According to a statement made to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) news agency by the Executive Board member responsible for Cash, Johannes Beermann, over the course of 2021 the Bundesbank will begin issuing new €20 banknotes with a special coating that is designed to extend the lifespan of the banknotes.

The Bundesbank’s National Analysis Centre in Mainz receives around 30,000 requests every year for the replacement of damaged cash. In order to facilitate reconstruction in cases involving a large number of banknote fragments, the Bundesbank joined forces with the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology (Fraunhofer IPK) to develop a digital system for reconstructing badly damaged euro banknotes based on “ePuzzler” technology.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann sees a need for monetary policy action stemming from the subdued medium-term inflation in the euro area. However, he also considers it crucial that the share of outstanding government bonds held by central banks does not become too large. “Otherwise, we would be running the risk of gaining a dominant market influence and smoothing out the differences in risk premia for government bonds,” Mr Weidmann said in a speech delivered virtually at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

In 2019, shortly before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the profitability of German non-financial enterprises was in good shape. Overall, German enterprises earned an average of 4.3 cent on each euro of sales in 2019, the Bundesbank writes in its latest Monthly Report. However, the coronavirus pandemic is likely to weigh heavily on corporate profitability this year and insolvencies are likely to increase.