German service and product exports in retrospect: Are there prominent differences in growth?

In recent years German exports have proved to be the locomotive of economic activity of the German economy, and Germany was celebrated as world champion exporter even ahead of the United States. In fact, the title applies only to merchandise exports. If one also considers service exports, the United States is in the lead. In this article, data for German merchandise exports and for German service exports are examined separately over the long term in order to illustrate the structural features of the time series. The study also shows that goods exports are subject to cyclical variations resulting from typical investment patterns, and also in terms of seasonal effects there are clear differences. The trend analysis also shows that merchandise exports and trade in services mostly follow quite different growth paths.