State Finance Beyond the Core Budget. Off-Balance-Sheet Fiscal Agencies in Germany’s Fiscal Ecosystem (with Gregor Laudage, Armin Haas, and Andrei Guter-Sandu)
The state as a financial actor is commonly imagined to be a unitary entity that interacts with the wider financial system via its core budget operated by the treasury that generates inflows via taxes and […]
‘Decoding Dollar Dominance: The Global Credit View on the Monetary System in International Political Economy’ (with Herman Mark Schwartz)
This article contrasts the Sovereign Currency View (SCV) and the Global Credit View (GCV) on the monetary system in International Political Economy (IPE) regarding four crucial assumptions: endogenous credit creation versus transaction costs and loanable […]
‘A Feature, Not a Bug. The US Dollar in the European Monetary Union’ (with Torsten Ehlers)
The European Monetary Union (EMU) is often seen as an attempt to shield Europe from USD dominance. However, as BIS data shows, the USD’s volume and share in EMU cross-border payments has been constantly rising […]
‘Re-assessing Fragmentation of the Euro Area Banking System. Offshore Channels for Cross-Border Banking Activities’ (with Torsten Ehlers)
It is an established assessment that since the Eurocrisis, the Euro area banking system has been fragmented. Representing the Eurozone’s monetary architecture as a web of interlocking balance sheets, we carve out four different types […]
‘Encumbered Security. Conceptualizing Vertical and Horizontal Repos in the Euro Area’ (with Alexandru-Stefan Goghie and Matteo Giordano)
Despite the paramount centrality of repurchase agreements (repos) in today’s market-based finance regime, both conceptual and empirical questions about European repo markets are insufficiently explored as contradictory legal and accounting treatments make their on-balance-sheet representation […]
‘Transformation of the Eurozone Architecture. On Crises and Institutional Change in the Offshore US-Dollar System’ (with Alexandru-Stefan Goghie, Matteo Giordano and Friederike Reimer)
The Eurocrisis was a make-it-or-break-it moment for the EMU with a profound impact on the transformation of the Eurozone architecture. However, its underlying macro-financial causes remain insufficiently understood. While dominant narratives emphasize excessive sovereign debt […]
‘Rethinking Currency Internationalisation. The Euro’s International Monetary Governance and Offshore Money Creation’ (with Jens van ‘t Klooster)
Successful internationalisation of the euro has eluded EU policymakers since its introduction. This article provides a novel explanation for the puzzling subordinate position of the single currency. Drawing on the most recent International Political Economy […]
‘Green Macro-Financial Governance in the European Monetary Architecture. Assessing the Capacity to Finance the Net-Zero Transition’ (with Andrei Guter-Sandu and Armin Haas)
The Green Transition to net-zero carbon emissions in Europe requires massive financing efforts, with estimates of 620 billion EUR annually, but the headwinds are substantive. Central banks seem overstretched and busy tightening to combat inflation; treasuries are […]
‘Macro-Financial Innovation in Times of Crisis: The Role of the Recovery and Resilience Facility in Transforming the Eurozone’s Monetary Architecture’ (with Friederike Reimer, Andrei Guter-Sandu, and Armin Haas)
The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), introduced as EU’s main macro-financial response to the Covid-19 pandemic, has been hailed as Europe’s Hamiltonian moment and raised great expectations for future fiscal integration. Despite its promised radicality, […]
‘The Mefo Operation. A Macro-Financial Analysis of Hjalmar Schacht’s Shadow Money Scheme’ (with Armin Haas, Friederike Reimer, and Andrei Guter-Sandu)
In the summer of 1931, Germany faced the nadir of the Great Depression. After the Machtergreifung of the Nazis in 1933, Hjalmar Schacht was appointed president of the Reichsbank and invented the “Mefo operation” to […]