Unintended Side Effects

The FTD reports that West Africa's car-market is collapsing: Most of the cars sold in Benin and neighboring African countries are very old used cars imported from Europe, and in particular from Germany (it is estimated that 40 % of cars sold in Benin are produced in Germany, and nearly all of them were imported as used cars). Very few of these cars sell for anything close to 2,500 €.

Unfortunately, Germany is paying a scraping bonus of 2,500 € for all old cars. And many other European countries have introduced similar schemes (though none are as generous as the German one). As a result, the market for used cars with a value of less than 2,500 € has suffered terribly. And Africans can't find affordable cars anymore.

(To be fair, the FTD article may exaggerate a bit: In the beginning, it talks at length about a Berlin-based car exporter who has been unable to export a single car for months due to lack of supply; but towards the end of the article, the manager of a shipping company "only" sees a drop of 20-30 % of used cars shipped to Africa. So maybe the effect is smaller than the article wants to insinuate...)