‘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 […]
‘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 […]
‘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, […]
‘Primary Dealers in the Offshore US-Dollar System. Intermediating Treasury and Central Bank Balance Sheets’ (with Will Bateman)
This study analyzes the Primary Dealer model for the issuance and distribution of sovereign debt as a distinctive feature of today’s international monetary system, the Offshore US-Dollar System. Primary dealers are a group of private […]
2023 | ‘Forging Monetary Unification through Novation. The TARGET System and the Politics of Central Banking in Europe’ (with Matteo Giordano), Socio-Economic Review
When Economic and Monetary Union became effective in January 1999, it remained unclear what accounting treatment to choose for claims and obligations that the Eurosystem’s National Central Banks (NCBs) incur against each other in the […]
2023 | ‘Rethinking Monetary Sovereignty. The Global Credit Money System and the State’ (with Jens van ‘t Klooster), Perspectives on Politics
This article proposes a conception of monetary sovereignty that recognizes the reality of today’s global credit money system. Monetary sovereignty is typically used in a ‘Westphalian’ sense that simply denotes the ability of states to […]
2022 | ‘The Transformation of Eurozone Fiscal Governance. Mitigating Fiscal Discipline through a Proliferation of Off-Balance-Sheet Fiscal Agencies’ (with Andrei Guter-Sandu), New Political Economy
The original Maastricht regime designed the Eurozone’s fiscal segment in a way that sought to keep member states’ treasury budgets balanced by disciplining them through market forces, reducing the overall volume of public indebtedness, prohibiting […]
2020 | ‘A Macro-Financial Model of the Eurozone Architecture Embedded in the Global Offshore US-Dollar System’, GEGI Study July 2020
It is a convention to say that the Eurozone architecture is ill-constructed and deficient. However, monetary architecture is not a well-defined term in monetary theory, and there is no consensus what the Eurozone architecture is beyond being […]