Germany is not Volkswagen

Munich

THE Volkswagen scandal has raised questions about the German model of production. If the success of the company's diesel-powered vehicles was due in part to fraudulent efforts to conceal the amount of harmful pollutants they emitted, will similar revelations at other companies call into question the country's transformation from "the sick man of Europe" to an export-driven economic powerhouse?

Fortunately, the answer is almost certainly no. Germany's competitive advantage has less to do with chicanery than with how its firms are structured and the culture in which they operate. Germany's leading car company is an exception to the manufacturing rules that have driven the country's success, not an example of them.