The Bundesbank’s disingenuous claim that Southern Europeans are richer than Germans has stoked anti-bailout sentiment.

Recent weeks have seen the German Central Bank and the European Central Bank release studies that have suggested that Germans have less wealth than Southern Europeans. Stefan Bauchowitz and José Javier Olivas argue that differences between the data used and the composition of German and Southern European households make this comparison largely meaningless. They write that the studies have been framed in such a way to move public discourse to be against bail outs for countries in Southern Europe.